CEEP – Centro Eccellenza Energia Pulita (Clean Energy Centre of Excellence)
Establishment of a centre of excellence for advanced research on gasification and CO2 separation, use and containment technologies.
Period: 2014-2017
Costs: 8.4M€ (financed by Regione Autonoma della Sardegna)
The overall objective of Centro Eccellenze Energia Pulita (CEEP) project is the realisation of an advanced infrastructure of international significance, understood as a set of sophisticated equipment and instruments and highly specialised personnel, in order to carry out research and technological development activities̀ on energy conversion processes characterised by low pollutant and climate-changing emissions.
The universally recognised studies of the International Energy Agency (IEA) indicate that, if the increase in the average temperature of the planet (so-called global warming) is to be limited to 2 °C by 2050, a very strong reduction in carbon dioxide emissions will be necessary by means of various types of intervention. Among these, according to the latest edition of the IEA's World Energy Outlook, energy efficiency, the use of renewable energy sources, and the use of innovative technologies that allow fossil fuels to still be used (both in the power generation sector and in some industrial sectors), but in an environmentally and climate compatible manner, will play a particularly pronounced role: all of this is included in the so-called Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) technologies. The development and dissemination of these technologies today represent a major challenge, with the main objective of cutting costs and making them competitive with conventional technologies that are no longer compatible with environmental conservation. This requires advanced research, which needs innovative and sophisticated experimental equipment together with specialised skills that are not available everywhere. Within the CEEP project, therefore, an important research infrastructure was established for advanced studies on the production of electricity from biomass (one of the most important renewable energy sources) and for the possible application of CCUS technologies to the power generation sector and some industrial sectors.
Overall, for the phases of the project developed over the years (the first from January 2014 to December 2017, the second from January 2018 to December 2020, the third, currently under way, from March to November 2021), the project can be understood as being divided into different lines of activity, each of which includes (especially for the first phase) the construction of the main infrastructures (laboratories, experimental facilities, etc.) and the performance of theoretical and experimental research activities necessary for the testing and fine-tuning of the equipment and for the performance of advanced experimental activities. In addition, during the project, considerable importance was attached to networking at international level and to the communication and dissemination aspects of the results, especially through the organisation of an international Summer School.
Last update
06/11/2024, 12:03