The EU’s long-term climate strategy and the European Green Deal highlight the pivotal role of renewable energies for the continent’s decarbonisation objectives. However, renewable energy sources (RES) such as wind and solar require the deployment of large-scale energy storage systems to increase the security of supply. Furthermore, the IEA World Energy Outlook 2020 and recent IPCC reports stressed that the Paris Climate Agreement and EU targets cannot be reached without a substantial capture of CO2 in hard-to-decarbonise sectors such as cement, iron, steel or fertiliser production. Considering the current energy crisis, it is also imperative to diversify the portfolio of RES, making increased used of constant sources such as geothermal energy.
The Horizon Europe-funded CEEGS project is therefore developing an innovative CO2-based electrothermal energy and geological storage system. The concept aims at making feasible the integration of transcritical CO2 cycles with underground energy storage achieved through simultaneous CO2 geological storage and geothermal heat extraction and improving thus the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) and renewable energy storage technologies at a low environmental impact. CEEGS intends to bring the theoretical concept to a lab-scale proven technology, offering a cross-sectoral technology solution for the energy transition.
CEEGS held its kick-off meeting at the end of November 2022 and the project will run over a period of three years. Financed by the Horizon Europe programme with a budget of €2,992,060, CEEGS is coordinated by the University of Seville. The consortium consists of 10 partners from 5 European countries, bringing together multidisciplinary skills in energy systems, energy storage, geology, geothermal systems, CO2 geological storage and social sciences that will use the support of leading European geology associations and industries in the energy sectors.
Illustration of the CEEGS concept