CNRS – PROMES – Thémis Solar Tower Plant
TA63 – CNRS-PROMES-Thémis
Location
Av. Professeur Félix Trombe
66120 Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via, France
Description
Organisation Description:
PROMES is a research unit of the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and is also linked to the University of Perpignan (UPVD). The laboratory is located in three sites, namely Odeillo-Font Romeu (CNRS Solar furnaces), nearby Targasonne (central receiver solar facility in Thémis site) and Perpignan (Tecnosud business zone and University proximity). The staff of PROMES is comprised of about 150 employees working in three research groups and six technical/administrative departments. The three research groups are ‘materials under extreme conditions’, ‘next generation CSP’, and ‘storage and solar chemistry’. PROMES is leading or involved in several European and national projects. It is notably currently leading the national project ‘laboratory of excellence’ SOLSTICE (Solar Energy: Science, Technology and Innovation for Energy Conversion) to improve solar research.
Since 2016, the solar facilities of PROMES have been identified by the French government as the National Solar Thermal Research Infrastructure for Concentrated Solar Power under the acronym FR-SOLARIS). Indeed, PROMES has a long history of hosting users on its world-unique facilities, especially thanks to European projects since the 2000s (including TMR, SOLFACE and SFERA I to III).
In addition to the topics to which PROMES contributes directly, external users come for many additional fields and applications, such as biomaterials for health, solar laser for industrial or energy applications, or rare earth materials properties investigation. The wide versatility of usage of PROMES-CNRS solar facilities is due to the wide power range available (from lab scale to industrial prototypes) and power density: conveniently controllable up to 16000 suns, achieving up to 4000°C for material tests, or 3000+°C for processes.
A very large spectrum of research areas is supported, either at high temperatures (from ambient up to 4000°C) and/or high flux (up to 16 MW/m2). Research areas range from fundamental research to industrial developments (TRL 3 to 7), including, as of yet, electricity production, energy storage (thermal latent or sensible, chemical, such as metallic foams for hydrogen…), thermochemistry (solar fuels, synthetic fuels, hydrogen…), physics (heat exchanger characterisation, spectrum manipulation,…), solar metallurgy and high temperature materials synthesis or characterisation ( aerospace, automotive, solar receivers, nuclear reactors,…), photophysics (high concentration PV, thermoionic conversion,…), biology (bioreactors, water treatment,…), industrial heat and processes hybridisation, space processes (components for probes including for NASA and ESA, moon/mars colonies,…).
Research Infrastructure Description:
The 5MW Themis solar tower plant is one of the rare facilities of this size available for research and development purposes up to the prototype scale. With its 107 concentrating heliostats and two focal areas (one of 600m3 and one of 70 m3, up to 100 metric tons), it is particularly suitable for research high temperature solar plants (800-1400°C) at large scale, allowing the test of next generation solar processes as well as innovative cycles or hybridisation of industrial processes (metallurgy, cement plants, glass manufacturing,…).
Testing Capabilities
The 5MW Themis solar tower plant, featuring 107 heliostats and two large focal areas, is ideal for high-temperature solar research (800-1400°C) at prototype scale, supporting the testing of next-generation solar processes and innovative industrial cycles.
Technical Equipment
The 5 MW Themis solar tower plant features 107 heliostats and two focal areas (600m³ and 70m³, up to 100 tons). It supports high-temperature solar research (800-1,400°C) and tests for next-generation solar processes and industrial hybridisation.
Additional information
Technology Readiness Level: 4-6
Special considerations: N/A
Technology clusters: CSP/STE, Materials for Energy
Website: http://www.promes.cnrs.fr
Availability: All year
Provision of tools to prepare data sets in a FAIR way: Yes
