energy – Progress in Research

SCO2OP-TES: revolutionizing energy storage

Posted on 23/01/202406/08/2024 by Erik Franco

To revolutionize energy storage in the transition towards renewable energy sources. It is the aim of the Horizon Europe project SCO2OP-TES, which will lead to the development and validation of an innovative “Carnot Battery” configuration.

The project will last four years and have a total budget of approximately 4.7 million euros. It will involve Professor Giacomo Persico of the Department of Energy together with his team, as well as 16 partners from 10 European countries.

The SCO2OP-TES initiative is part of the European Union’s strategy to reduce emissions in the energy and industrial sectors, aligned with the recent REPowerEU Plan, aiming to achieve an installation of renewable energy capacity of 1236 GW by 2030.

Our involvement in this project is a significant step towards the development of innovative solutions for energy storage.
Giacomo Persico

Europe faces the challenge not only of efficiently converting large amounts of energy from renewable sources but also ensuring stability in energy supplies and continuous utilization throughout the year. Current storage solutions, such as batteries and power-to-hydrogen systems, are currently insufficient to cover specific flexibility services in the electrical grid, services that only energy systems based on direct and reverse thermodynamic cycles operating with turbomachinery can provide.

The SCO2OP-TES project aims to develop and validate the next generation of ‘Power-to-Heat-to-Power‘ (P2H2P) energy storage solutions.

The focus is on the development of a new type of “Carnot Battery”, based on the combination of direct and reverse thermodynamic cycles operating with supercritical carbon dioxide. This system can harness heat from renewable thermal sources or waste heat from industrial processes and power plants in the energy storage process. This ensures a very high energy efficiency during charging and discharging, making the interaction between industrial plants and the electrical grid more effective.

The project aims to design, build, and test a pilot plant to validate the technology in an industrially relevant environment before studying its application in large-scale installations.

The Politecnico research group’s contribution will be crucial: developing and providing innovative techniques based on Artificial Intelligence for the design and optimization of turbomachinery installed in the system operating with supercritical CO₂ at high temperatures.

The study will lead therefore to the creation and experimental validation of highly innovative machines, significantly impacting the future success of long-term and large-scale energy storage systems.

Collaborating with other European partners will allow us to develop, apply, and validate the Artificial Intelligence techniques we have been working on for years for the project and the multidisciplinary optimization of turbomachinery operating with supercritical CO₂, contributing significantly to the transition towards large-scale renewable energy sources.

Electricity: how to take advantage of the heat generated by industrial processes?

Posted on 16/01/202406/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The current need to reduce pollutant emissions and mitigate the effects of climate change calls for innovative avenues in the field of electricity production. Paradoxically, in industry, significant amounts of heat are lost to the environment by energy-intensive processes such as those in glass, cement, metals, paper and food. This neglected resource could instead represent a significant contribution to decarbonisation, with an estimated potential of 5% of the EU’s total electricity needs. This is equivalent to the electricity consumption of 20,000,000 households or the production of 19 large power plants.

Exploiting this possible energy source is the objective of the POWHER project, coordinated by Prof. Andrea Spinelli and Prof. Alessandro Romei of the Department of Energy at Politecnico di Milano and financed by the European Union (Next Generation Europe) within the framework of the Research Projects of Significant National Interest (PRIN – MUR).

Exploiting waste heat from industry is crucial for a sustainable energy future. POWHER aims to turn this potential into reality with innovative solutions.

The approach used by the POWHER project is based on Organic Rankine Cycles (ORCs), a technology similar to traditional steam cycles which uses the vaporisation of an organic fluid instead of water. This choice allows the construction of simpler and cheaper systems with good conversion efficiencies.

The focus of researchers at Politecnico di Milano and the University of Bologna is the implementation of Partial Evaporation Organic Rankine Cycles (PE-ORCs), an innovative version of ORCs. This solution could increaseefficiency by up to 30% through incomplete evaporation of the organic fluid. Both theoretical and experimental studies will focus on overcoming the challenges that have so far hindered the adoption of this technology: the development of efficient turbines for two-phase (liquid-vapour) fluids and the optimisation of plant control strategies.

The experimental activities will take place at the Test Rig for Organic VApors (TROVA) at Politecnico di Milano, one of the few experimental apparatuses in the world suitable for studying the motion of organic fluids at high speed and temperature.

The POWHER project thus promises to be an important step towards a sustainable energy future, making innovative use of an often neglected resource and paving the way for efficient power generation solutions.

Innovative, eco-friendly and recycled materials to improve energy efficiency

Posted on 22/12/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The M-TES (Metallic Phase Change Material-Composites for Thermal Energy Management) project, led by Politecnico di Milano and funded by the European Innovation Council (EISMEA) under the Pathfinder action “Mid to Long Term and Systems Integrated Energy Storage”, has kicked off.

In the next three years, the project aims to address energy-saving challenges by focusing on heat recovery, storage, and heat management in processes involving the production or re-use of energy in the form of heat.

The objective is to develop eco-friendly and cost-efficient materials for thermal energy storage and management, leveraging the heat stored or released during the phase transition of Phase Change Materials (PCM). The innovation lies in the creation of metallic phase change material-composites (m-PCMs), where structural and PCM metals are integrated into a single body. These m-PCMs offer both thermal functionality and mechanical structural properties. Furthermore, the project will explore the processing of these m-PCM composites to achieve shapes and performance characteristics suitable for future applications in the energy and industrial sectors.

The research will be coordinated by Professor Elisabetta Gariboldi, with Andrea Lucchini as Vice-coordinator, and will involve researchers from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Energy. The M-TES consortium includes Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (ICMATE), Łukasiewicz – Krakow Institute of Technology (Poland), and The University Otto Von Guericke in Magdeburg (Germany).

M-TES project website

Optical wireless may no longer have any obstacles

Posted on 19/12/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Optical wireless may no longer have any obstacles. A study by Politecnico di Milano, conductedtogether with Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, the University of Glasgow and Stanford University, and published in the prestigious journal Nature Photonics, has made it possible to create photonic chips that mathematically calculate the optimal shape of light to best pass through any environment, even one that is unknown or changing over time.

The problem is well known: light is sensitive to any form of obstacle, even very small ones. Think, for example, of how we see objects when looking through a frosted window or simply when our glasses get foggy. The effect is quite similar on a beam of light carrying data streams in optical wireless systems: the information, while still present, is completely distorted and extremely difficult to retrieve.

The devices developed in this research are small silicon chips that serve as smart transceivers: working in pairs, they can automatically and autonomously ‘calculate’ what shape a beam of light needs to be in order to pass through a generic environment with maximum efficiency. Not only that: at the same time they can also generate many overlapping beams, each with its own shape, and direct them without them interfering with each other. This makes it possible to significantly increase transmission capacity, just as required by next-generation wireless systems.

Our chips are mathematical processors that make calculations on light very quickly and efficiently, almost with no energy consumption. The optical beams are generated through simple algebraic operations, essentially sums and multiplications, performed directly on the light signals and transmitted by micro-antennas directly integrated on the chips. This technology offers many advantages: extremely easy processing, high energy efficiency and an enormous bandwidth exceeding 5000 GHz
Francesco Morichetti, Head of the Photonic Devices Lab

‘Today, all information is digital, but in fact, images, sounds and all data are inherently analogue. Digitisation does allow for very complex processing, but as the volume of data increases, these operations become increasingly less sustainable in terms of energy and computation. Today, there is great interest in returning to analogue technologies, through dedicated circuits (analogue co-processors) that will serve as enablers for the 5G and 6G wireless interconnection systems of the future. Our chips work just like that’, stresses Andrea Melloni, Director of Polifab, Politecnico di Milano’s micro and nanotechnology centre.

The activity is co-funded under the NRRP by the RESTART research and development programme ‘RESearch and innovation on future Telecommunications systems and networks, to make Italy more smart’, in which Prof. Andrea Melloni of Politecnico di Milano and Prof. Piero Castoldi of the TeCIP Institute of the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa are coordinating the HePIC and Rigoletto projects, which aim to build prototypes in integrated photonics and future optical communications networks enabling the 6G infrastructure.

SeyedinNavadeh, S., Milanizadeh, M., Zanetto, F. et al.
Determining the optimal communication channels of arbitrary optical systems using integrated photonic processors.
Nat. Photon. (2023).

Read the study online

Improving sustainability and safety of critical infrastructures with AI

Posted on 14/12/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to support decision-making, and increasing efficiency and safety in the operation of critical infrastructures. This is the aim of the European project AI4REALNET – AI for REAL-World network operation, funded by the European Union with almost 4 million euros, through the Horizon Europe programme, and by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) of Switzerland with 2 million euros.

The project, led by the Portuguese research institute INESC TEC, involves the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, and the Department of Management, Economics and Industrial Engineering of the Politecnico di Milano, and partners from France, Germany, Netherlands, Swizterland, Sweden and Austria, and promotes the collaboration between Artificial Intelligence and humans. The aim is to ensure that AI emerges as a way to support faster decisions made by human operators, creating conditions for the decarbonisation of the energy and transport sectors.

The project aims at improving the safety and resilience of critical infrastructures, which are becoming more challenging, not only due to the increase in the volume of information, but also due to the changes imposed by decarbonisation. The AI4REALNET consortium
Prof. Marcello Restelli, project coordinator for the Politecnico di Milano

With the involvement of industry, the project will promote awareness of the benefits of reinforcement learning and explainable machine learning. The project will also resort to current open-source AI-friendly digital environments, e.g., Grid2Op, Flatland, and BlueSky to foster and advance a global AI community.

Electric vehicles: towards environmentally sustainable air conditioning

Posted on 12/12/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Increasing the autonomy of electric vehicles in winter through advanced thermal energy storage technology that reduces the amount of energy used for air conditioning in the passenger compartment during colder months: this is the main objective of the PRIN project “Air Conditioning of Electric Vehicles by Sorption Thermal Energy Storage technology” (ACE-STES), financed by the Ministry for Universities and Research and led by Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with CNR-ICCOM and the University of Messina.

Currently, it is estimated that up to 50% of the energy stored in electric vehicle batteries is used during winter for passenger compartment air conditioning. ACE-STES aims to develop innovative thermal storage systems using adsorbents. These systems provide a continuous supply of warm, dry air to heat the passenger compartment and prevent window fogging, thus significantly improving the autonomy of vehicles in winter.

With the ACE-STES project, we are forging new pathways in electric vehicle air conditioning, contributing to more sustainable and efficient mobility solutions
Prof. Stefano De Antonellis, lecturer in the Department of Energy at Politecnico di Milano and project coordinator

The system proposed by the ACE-STES project, called TES (Thermal Energy Storage), has already been recognised as the winner of the 2022 edition of Switch2Product — the programme that celebrates innovative solutions, new technologies and business ideas proposed by teams from the Politecnico di Milano ecosystem — and has been the focus of a patent application.

Revolutionizing industrial materials sustainably

Posted on 11/12/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

An international team, which includes researchers from Politecnico di Milano, Rice University, University of Cambridge, Stanford University, UC Santa Barbara and other U.S. and European universities, has received $4 millions in funding from Kavli Foundation and the Carbon Hub of the Rice University to advance understanding of carbon nanotube synthesis and its potential for producing industrial materials more sustainably.

The research will be focused on the development of alternative materials to steel, aluminum and copper, whose production contributes to over 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon nanotube fibers boast strength comparable to steel and conductivity akin to copper. This makes them a promising and sustainable resource for materials needed for the energy transition an the electrification.

Current raw materials for nanotube production, such as natural gas and other hydrocarbons, are largely burned as fuels, also in the field of metal industry. As the world transitions to renewable energy, these abundant resources could be harnessed to produce global quantities of nanotubes, fixing the carbon content in durable and recyclable materials, as opposed to CO₂ emission in the atmosphere, with the positive additional consequence of generating clean hydrogen as a valuable by-product.

The group of the Politecnico participating in the project is coordinated by Matteo Maestri, professor at the Department of Energy, and includes Mauro Bracconi (Department of Energy) and Matteo Pelucchi (Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering “Giulio Natta”). The researchers will focus on multiscale modelling and analysis of chemical reactions and reactors.

Support DHC: decarbonising district heating and cooling sector

Posted on 04/12/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

The actions of the Support DHC project, co-financed by the European Union under the LIFE programme, the EU’s financial instrument for the environment and climate action, have officially started.

The three-year project aims to support the transformation of the District Heating and Cooling (DHC) sector – ie the one related to district heating and cooling technologies – in the coming decades, with the goal of achieving near-total decarbonisation.

The main challenges to be addressed will be investment in infrastructure and components, awareness development and involvement of supply chain actors and the grounding of technologies and initiatives for a concrete and massive use of renewables and waste heat.

Through the project, tangible support will be offered to operators in planning decarbonisation pathways and developing their investment plans with particular reference to 6 European countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.

Politecnico di Milano will be the project’s Italian referent and researchers from the Department of Architecture, Built Environment and Construction Engineering (ABC) and the Department of Energy will be involved; the project will therefore be an opportunity for the creation of an interdepartmental working group on a topic that is fundamental for the evolution of the built environment and thermal systems in Italy.

Support DHC is coordinated by WIP – Wirtschaft und Infrastruktur Gmbh & Co Planungs Kg (Germany) and involves the following partners:

AGFW-Projektgesellschaft für Rationalisierung, Information und Standardisierung Mbh (Germany)
AEE Intec – Institut für Nachhaltige Technologien (Austria)
e-think – Zentrum für Energiewirtschaft und Umwelt (Austria)
Politecnico di Milano (Italy)
Euroheat & Power (Belgium)
PlanEnergi Fond (Denmark)
Högskolan i Halmstad (Sweden)
LITHUANIAN DISTRICT HEATING ASSOCIATION (Lithuania)
Municipal Institution City Institute (Ukraine)
Stowarzyszenie Gmin Polska Sieć ‘Energie Cités’ (Poland)

MESSI: management energy systems for smart island

Posted on 27/11/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Kick off meeting of the MESSI project at the Department of Energy, with five researchers involved.

The MESSI (Management Energy Systems for Smart Island) project aims to integrate and develop innovative devices and algorithms for the efficient management of energy in islands.

The project will implement an automated energy management system for microgrids capable of integrating renewable energy sources, supercaps, storage systems, electric vehicles and e-boats, charging stations and desalination units controlled in a coordinated way using ICT systems and Artificial Intelligence.

The objective is to meet the energy transition challenges and at the same time guarantee the grid reliability and energy independence of smart and green islands, with a real test bed in Ponza island.

The MESSI project represents an important step towards the integration of innovative solutions for the energy management in islands. The main objective is to promote energy efficiency through the use of cutting-edge technologies and the integration of renewable sources, and electric vehicles and boats.
Professor Sonia Leva

MESSI is funded with €276,959, of which €205,817 from the Ministry of University and Research as a “Project of significant national interest” (PRIN). In addition to our university, it sees the participation of the University of ROME “La Sapienza”, under the coordination of Professor Sonia Leva of the Department of Energy of Politecnico di Milano.

MIMO: new multidisciplinary modelling platform

Posted on 06/11/202306/08/2024 by Erik Franco

Kick off meeting of the MIMO project at the Department of Energy, with ten professors and researchers involved.

The MIMO (Multi-sectoral Integrated Modelling platform for planning national energy transition pathways) project aims to develop a new multidisciplinary modelling platform, based on the integration of energy and micro- and macro-economic models. A platform that will make it possible to determine how and where economic resources should be allocated to promote the energy transition, the type of technological evolution to be adopted to ensure a predetermined energy target and whether the necessary technological changes are actually compatible with sustainable growth.

These are innovative interconnected tools responding to the need to assess the technological feasibility of the transition process and quantify the implications in terms of economic, social and environmental sustainability, supporting policy decisions.

MIMO is funded with €350,000, of which €220,000 by the Ministry of University and Research (MUR) as a “Project of Relevant National Interest” (PRIN). In addition to our university, it sees the participation of Università di Macerata, Università degli Studi di Firenze and IRPET, under the coordination of Professor Matteo Vincenzo Rocco of the Department of Energy of the Politecnico di Milano.