Formate for Renewable Energy Storage

FRESH aims to contribute to reducing the European Union’s dependence on fossil fuels for power generation, providing a cushion for the intermittent character of renewable electricity generation leading to stable, more predictable prices for renewable electricity, which is crucial for the future development of large-scale renewable power generation, and therefore, the energy transition. The project will achieve this through the development, construction and validation at TRL 4, of an integrated, cost competitive process for conversion of CO2 to potassium formate using an electrocatalytic process powered by renewable electricity. The highly stable potassium formate generated by the reactor will be stored safely for long periods (from short term or seasonal) in tanks. The subsequent conversion of the stored potassium formate to electricity on demand will use a direct fuel cell system. The project includes development of the individual components (CO2 to formate and formate to electricity), CO2 sourcing and purification and ultimately the construction and validation of an integrated protoype at TRL 4. This will be achieved by the implementation of a series of interconnected work packages. FRESH is structured around five technical work packages (WPs 2-6) and two ‘enabling/value adding’ work packages (WPs 1 and 7), supporting dissemination, exploitation and management activities. FRESH addresses the work program topic by (1) developing a new renewable energy storage technology (2) highly workable concept & approach, (3) implementation work plan & strategy, (4) a validated prototype at TRL 4, (5) participants with excellent track records for project execution and exploitation and (6) comprehensive LCA and TEA and energy market evaluation of this new technology. The consortium consists of 7 partners of which 1 research institute (ICCOM), 4 industrial partners (COVAL, ENGIE laboelec, HYSYTECH, eRisk) and 2 universities (FZJ and DTU) from 5 EU member states.