Imagine a giant, high-tech battery for heat instead of electricity. It uses special materials—some made from food waste—to soak up heat during the day or week and release it exactly when needed. This lets buildings act like sponges that help stabilize the city's power grid by shifting when they use energy.
Buildings waste significant energy and struggle to integrate renewable power due to a lack of efficient, compact heat storage. Current solutions are often too expensive or too bulky for urban residential use.
Developed FractLES (short-term PCM storage) and SorTES (long-term sorption storage) systems, including optimized heat exchangers and BEMS control software.
If you are a developer dealing with high heating costs in multi-family buildings — this project developed modular storage from 3 to 100 kWh that increases energy efficiency. It allows buildings to store heat for up to 4 weeks, reducing reliance on expensive peak-hour energy.
If you are a utility provider dealing with unstable renewable energy loads — this project developed Power-to-Heat solutions that turn buildings into grid flexibility actors. This helps balance the grid by converting excess electricity into stored thermal energy.
If you are a manufacturer dealing with organic waste from the food industry — this project developed bio-based phase change materials (PCM) that turn waste into valuable energy storage products. This creates a new revenue stream from previously discarded raw materials.
The project targets a cost of 140 €/kWh for short-duration storage and 200 €/kWh for long-duration storage.
The solutions are modular, ranging from 3 to 100 kWh to ensure they can be integrated into various building sizes.
Based on available project data, specific licensing terms are not mentioned, but the project involves 10 industrial partners and 8 SMEs developing the technology.
The technology is integrated via Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) and is designed for buildings both connected and not-connected to district heating networks.
The project runs from 2023-01-01 to 2027-06-30, with demonstrations in three sites across Spain and Sweden.
The consortium is heavily industry-weighted with 10 industrial partners (48% ratio), including 8 SMEs, indicating a strong push toward commercialization. With 21 partners across 9 European countries, the project leverages a broad geographic footprint to test different climates and energy markets, coordinated by Veolia, a major global player in environmental services.
Contact Veolia Servicios Lecam SA in Spain
Contact us to explore licensing opportunities for bio-based PCM materials.
