Australia's national science agency has signed an agreement with U.S. company GTI to develop a "game-changing" power generation technology.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) on Wednesday announced that it would work with GTI, a leader in new generation technologies, on developing a supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power plant.
David Harris, the CSIRO's Research Director for Energy Technologies, said that sCO2 power plants have the potential to be a transformational technology and accelerate the global shift to net zero emissions.
"While most power plants use steam to produce electricity, sCO2 power plants use recirculating high-temperature CO2 instead," he said in a media release.
"The advantage is that sCO2 is a higher density working fluid which means sCO2 power plants can be smaller, more efficient and not reliant on water for steam.
"Their widespread implementation could be a game changer for power generation applications in Australia."
The CSIRO has identified the mining industry as one that could reap the benefits of sCO2 power plants because they do not require steam, eliminating the challenge of water supply in remote areas.
"With many mining companies committing to large renewable energy targets, the use of sCO2 power could be the transformational technology that they are looking for," Harris said.
The Australian Solar Thermal Research Institute (ASTRI), a consortium of the CSIRO and six Australian universities, will lead research on how concentrated solar thermal (CST) technologies, which capture and store heat, could provide renewable energy for sCO2 plants.
"The use of Thermal Energy Storage (TES) to provide the heat to run these turbines is a critical enabler for renewable energy solutions," Wes Stein, Chief Technical Officer of ASTRI, said.
Editor: Galia
