The energy sector is vast, multi-faceted and complex. Continuous access to reliable, dispatchable energy is of fundamental importance for modern societies, including transport, industry and housing. The Ukraine conflict, impacting the supply of easily available and cheap natural gas, is forcing Europe to reconsider its energy future to ensure the security of supply. The large-scale adoption of new, energy-effective, cost-efficient and socially, politically and environmentally acceptable technologies is necessary to address current challenges. 

It is vital to recall that the ways we use energy today were shaped by the era of cheap fossil fuels, with limited appreciation of environmental impacts. This needs serious reconsideration. Major investments in research, including new Research Infrastructures (RIs), are imperative, together with a holistic consideration of the net effect of new technologies on environment and climate.

The RIs in the energy sector are not necessarily and far from exclusively industrial facilities. Rather, they perform functions which cannot and will not be addressed by the commercial sector alone and are vital to cope with current challenges. The urgency of fighting climate change has led to broadening the spectrum of research from solely addressing energy production to developing other technologies including carbon capture and energy storage. The latter is necessitated by the rapid adoption of non-dispatchable production technologies, such as wind and solar. 

Energy systems evolve, sometimes rapidly, driven by technological developments and driving forces in society. Where competing technologies perceived to be similarly environmentally benign exist (e.g., for electricity production) the more cost-efficient option is likely to be preferred, which is why fossil fuels have dominated until now. The security of energy supplies is currently highly relevant. Forces driving change in the energy sector include environmental loads, such as CO2 emissions from combustion of fossil fuels in energy production and transport; pollution, for instance from metals due to component production; and the disruption of ecosystems from land-use for energy production (e.g., energy biomass or solar fields in industrial scale) and use (e.g., transport).

The large-scale implementation of a new energy technology is often extremely costly, and the practical lifetime of constructed facilities may span several decades. In particular, the (unsubsidised) costs of modifications to the energy system (system costs) that are necessary to accommodate dispatchable and non-dispatchable energy sources should be estimated and taken into account. Choices based on comprehensive considerations must be made and identified challenges addressed. Furthermore, unforeseen developments may still greatly impact the longer-term trajectory of the energy sector. Consequently, there’s a strong rationale for research on a broad front. 

While there are many local, national and international RIs supporting energy research, only relatively few ESFRI energy RIs exist. Given the current ambitions for significant changes in the energy sector, this appears surprising. One important factor is that, unlike RIs in other sectors, the character of many potential energy RIs does not fit optimally with the current ESFRI concept; for instance, due to intimate interactions with the commercial/industrial sector. The geographically distributed nature of some energy RIs can also be a complicating factor.

Currently, ESFRI RIs encompass ESFRI Landmark EU-SOLARIS (solar energy), ESFRI Landmark ECCSEL ERIC (carbon capture, sequestration and valorisation), ESFRI Landmark JHR (Jules Horowitz Reactor, fission reactor to study materials), together with the ESFRI Project Marinerg-i (marine energy including wind), and ESFRI Project IFMIF-DONES (installation for the study of materials suitable for fusion reactors). The research carried out in these facilities is augmented by other non-ESFRI RIs around Europe, as exemplified below.

While Figure 1 displays the interplay of the fields and energy RIs, Figure 2 gives a comprehensive overview of the portfolio of ESFRI Energy RIs.

 

 

 

SOLAR ENERGY

The ESFRI Landmark EU-SOLARIS ERIC EU-SOLARIS ERIC
https://eu-solaris.eu focuses on several key areas of concentrated solar power. Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA) in Spain operates a set of test facilities, including solar thermal and photovoltaic systems, addressing different technologies, energy storage, and integration strategies. Other participants include the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE) in Germany, which addresses solar energy on a broader front. It houses multiple testing and research facilities, including the Outdoor Test Facility, which allows for the evaluation and characterization of different solar technologies under real-world conditions. 

WIND POWER

The ESFRI Project MARINERG-i MARINERG-i
https://marinerg-i.eu consists of distributed testing infrastructures, united to create an integrated centre for delivering Offshore Renewable Energy. Currently, the main thrust is on off-shore wind power, but the potential of wave and tidal energy is also explored. While wind power technology is already established, there are several institutes involved in improving the design and efficiency of wind turbines. Wind Europe Wind Europe
https://windeurope.org/
Note that in this document we can only refer to a few of the very many relevant organisations, and those included should be regarded as examples. oversees several RIs focused on wind energy, including large-scale test sites such as the Osterild and Høvsøre test centres in Denmark. These sites, as well as those provided by the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES) Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems
https://www.iwes.fraunhofer.de/ in Germany, provide researchers and industry partners with access to full-scale wind turbines for testing and validation of new technologies and concepts. Wind tunnel testing of wind turbines is facilitated by German-Dutch Wind Tunnels, DNW. German-Dutch Wind Tunnels
https://www.dnw.aero/

CARBON CAPTURE, USE AND STORAGE (CCUS)

Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCS and CCUS) potentially allow the continued large-scale use of fossil fuels with low CO2 release, and several large projects are underway around the world. The ESFRI Landmark ECCSEL ERIC ECCSEL ERIC
https://eccsel.org is a distributed RI that includes several research centres, universities, and industry partners across Europe. It aims at addressing all different components of CCUS. Capture technologies, such as absorption or adsorption, and membrane separation, are developed to improve CO2 removal from industrial processes and chemical production plants. Methods to use CO2 as gaseous feedstock to produce chemical intermediates, renewable fuels (e.g., CH4, methanol, Dimethyl Ether DME), and other products are also considered. Research on CO2 storage comprises both the safe transport to the location of the final deposition and developing means and safeguards for how the deposited CO2 can be stored permanently and kept from entering the atmosphere.

NUCLEAR FISSION

The ESFRI Landmark Jules Horowitz Reactor (JHR) JHR (Jules Horowitz Reactor)
https://jhreactor.com is under construction in France. The lifetime extensions of existing Nuclear Power Plants (NPPs), and prolonged storage of radioactive waste (RW), need experiments on materials under ionising radiation, which is what JHR can provide. At the same time, it will alleviate the lack of irradiation facilities in Europe. Since nuclear fission plays an important role, providing stable CO2-free base load electricity in the EU (about 25% in 2018), the main strategic objectives are safety aspects and long-term waste disposal. The MYRRHA (Multi-purpose hYbrid Research Reactor for High-tech Applications) MYRRHA
https://myrrha.be is part of an overall approach – Partitioning & Transmutation (P&T) – to reduce the amount of waste that requires a geological repository. Other research in this field includes reactor technology, fuel cycle, safety, decommissioning of nuclear installations and waste management. These topics are addressed, among others, by, the French CEA, the Belgian SCK/CEN, the Czech ÚJV Řež, a. s. ÚJV Řež, a. s. 
http://www.czech-research.com/rd-environment/research-organizations/ujv-rez/, the Italian ENEA Bologna, Brasimone, Casaccia, and the Swiss Nuclear and Safety Department of the Paul Scherrer Institute Paul Scherrer Institute, Nuclear Energy and Safety Research Division
https://www.psi.ch/en/nes, which are also open to international collaboration.

 

NUCLEAR FUSION

The ESFRI Project IFMIF-DONES (International Fusion Materials Irradiation Facility – Demo Oriented Neutron Source) IRMIF-DONES
https://ifmif-dones.es is a planned facility to provide an intense neutron source for the testing and development of materials that will be used in future fusion reactors. Currently the prototype of the IFMIF-DONES accelerator, unique as a high-intensity device, is being tested at Rokkasho, Japan. Other specific key technologies developed will be the complex lithium loop system and a sophisticated remote handling system required to extract and manipulate the irradiated samples. With the recent breakthroughs in fusion energy research In Europe, research is coordinated by EUROfusion 
https://euro-fusion.org/, the focus is moving from basic science towards technology and engineering. IFMIF-DONES is an important complement to the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) ITER
https://iter.org which is being built in Cadarache, France, in collaboration with six other international partners (China, India, Japan, Korea, Russia, and the United States), with Europe being the main funding partner.

OTHER FIELDS

There are numerous national and European initiatives addressing many different energy research and technology challenges that are not represented within ESFRI. Several fields, including energy production, storage and use, have significant EU support. Examples are geothermal energy, and batteries and hydrogen technologies for storage on different time scales. The latter is coordinated on a European scale through the Hydrogen Europe Research consortium Hydrogen Europe
https://hydrogeneurope.eu within the Clean Hydrogen Partnership. In addition, large efforts to build and upscale infrastructures for Research and Innovation (R&I) and interconnect actors in this field are on the way within the framework of the emerging EU Hydrogen Valleys. 
Despite the various existing initiatives, it is assessed that investments in European energy RIs are currently low compared to the challenges facing society. This is further discussed in section E.