EUROPAIRS - The Major Nuclear Cogeneration Project in FP7

Developers of High Temperature Reactors (HTR) worldwide acknowledge that the main asset for market breakthrough is its unique ability to address growing needs for industrial cogeneration of heat and power (CHP) owing to its high operating temperature and flexibility, adapted power level, modularity and robust safety features. HTR are thus well suited to most of the non-electric applications of nuclear energy, which represent about 80% of total energy consumption. This opens opportunities for reducing CO2 emissions and securing energy supply which are complementary to those provided by systems dedicated to electricity generation. A strong alliance between nuclear and process heat user industries is a necessity for developing a nuclear system for the conventional process heat market, much in the same way as the electro-nuclear development required a close partnership with utilities. Initiating such an alliance is one of the objectives of the EUROPAIRS project just started in the frame of the Euratom 7th Framework Programme (FP7). Within EUROPAIRS, process heat user industries express their requirements whereas nuclear industry will provide the performance window of HTR.. Starting from this shared information, an alliance will be forged by assessing the feasibility and impact of nuclear CHP from technical, industrial, economical, licensing and sustainability perspectives. This assessment work will allow pointing out the main issues and challenges for coupling an HTR with industrial process heat applications. On this basis, a roadmap will be elaborated for achieving an industrially relevant demonstration of such a coupling. This roadmap will not only take into consideration the necessary nuclear developments, but also the required adaptations of industrial application processes and the possible development of heat transport technologies from the nuclear heat source to application processes. Although only a small and short project (21 months), EUROPAIRS is of strategic importance: it will generate the boundary conditions for a rapid demonstration of collocating HTR with industrial processes as proposed by the European High Temperature Reactor Technology Network (HTR-TN).

BOGUSCH Edgar;  HITTNER Dominique;  VIALA Céline;  ANGULO Carmen;  CHAUVET Vincent;  FUETTERER Michael;  DE GROOT Sander;  VON LENSA Werner;  VERFONDERN Karl;  BAUDRAND Olivier;  RUER Jacques;  GRIFFAY Gérard;  BAATEN Anton; 

2010-12-01

JRC and TERIS

JRC61426