KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
By Dr. Rafael Guedez, KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden.
Hybridization of CSP with PV, and shifting from steam to supercritical CO2 cycles have been identified by key stakeholders in the CSP community as one of the most promising paths for advancing the state of the art of the technology, and thereby enhance its cost-competitiveness. This presentation will introduce to the current state of the art of the supercritical CO2 technology and molten salt electric heaters for hybridization with PV, the different research paths being investigated and challenges ahead. The presentation will also introduce the novel SOLARSCO2OL EU project.
Biography
Rafael Guedez is a mechanical engineer with proven experience in R&D, project management, finance, and business development in the energy sector. He holds a PhD in Energy Technology from KTH Royal Institute of Technology focused in the techno-financial analysis and optimization of concentrating solar power plants with storage, and has completed a 2-year Executive Program in Management and Leadership at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Throughout his career, he has led and acted as strategic advisor in projects related to solar power, energy storage, renewable integration, and thermal power engineering.
Currently, he is a senior researcher at the Heat and Power Division of the Energy Department at KTH. His research focuses on the development of techno-economic performance models for optimizing the design and operation of power plants, aimed at assisting decision making for developers, investors, operators, OEMs and EPCs. He is also the deputy director of the Sustainable Energy Engineering Master Program, and is the principal investigator for a number of EU and national funded projects in the fields of CSP, thermal energy storage, hydrogen for power-to-x, and thermal power plants.
Besides his academic involvement, Rafael is an Advisor to Azelio, a Swedish SME with a novel thermal energy storage solution, and he is also an Advisor to Naventus, a Swedish investment bank. Additionally, he is one of the directors and co-founders of Europe Power Solutions, a consulting firm in the area of power plant performance modeling. In the past I was an Advisor and Senior Performance Analyst at SolarReserve (3 years), and I also served as a guest Research Engineer at the Solar Energy division at Total, and at the R&D and Industrial Integration division at MASEN.