PROTEAS Facility

GENERAL INFORMATION

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Name of infrastructure: PROTEAS Facility

Hosting Entity

The Cyprus Institute

Scientific Domain: Energy Engineering Facilities (non-nuclear)

Description and purpose of the Research Infrastructure

Mission: PROTEAS Facility is a testbed for new renewable energy technologies, which is helping Cyprus and the EMME region transition to a new model of decentralized, renewable electricity, renewable process heat, and desalinated water. Objective: PROTEAS is part of wide-ranging infrastructural networks that allow for researcher mobility across Europe and is an industrial testing facility for novel technologies hosted at its premises. The facility allows for a wide range of experiments on various technological vectors that include Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) in a tower configuration using molten salt as the heat transfer fluid, solar dishes employing a Stirling engine, photovoltaic (PV) installations and a wind turbine, all connected into an integrated polygeneration system enabled by a tailored smart grid. It is the largest research infrastructure in Cyprus, and is unique in the region, and in many respects, globally. PROTEAS demonstrates innovative concepts and solutions applied to Cyprus and the region and it addresses challenges such as low renewables penetration in the energy mix, pressure on freshwater resources, and climate change

Research Infrastructure Policy

Please click the link below to read the Open Access Policy for the Research Infrastructure:

Cyprus Institute's Open Access Policy

USEFUL FIGURES

4

Personnel

75%

Male

25%

Female

10

Publications

ACCESS TO INFRASTRUCTURE

Academia
Industry

CONTACT INFO

Address: Afroditis Str., Pentakomo

Postal Code: 4528

City: Limassol

Website: https://energy.cyi.ac.cy/facilities/proteas/

Head of RI: Marios Georgiou

Contact Person of RI: Marios Georgiou | 22208706

INFORMATION OF INSTRUMENTATION OPERATING IN THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Heliostat Field

Name: Heliostat Field
Description: The heliostat field was designed and built in collaboration with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) of Australia employing CSIRO’s proprietary focusing heliostat design. The heliostats are installed on a hilly terrain, typical for the coast of Cyprus, with the field layout to be optimized to maximize annual energy yield and minimize shading. Currently the field consists of 50 heliostats, each with a reflective area of 5 m2 and constructed out of a single mirror facet. Each mirror has a reflectivity of 93% and was pre-stressed to form a paraboloid of revolution. The overall field capacity is 250kWth, with the provision to be expanded in 2024, with 21 identical heliostats reaching an installed capacity of 350kWth. The heliostats employ spinning-elevation tracking, while a beam characterization system sequentially calibrates each heliostat throughout the day to minimize tracking error.
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

concentration of solar radiation

Year: 2014

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users

Thermal Storage Tank

Name: Thermal Storage Tank
Description: A single-tank thermal energy storage (TES) system using molten salt as the heat storage medium was designed and constructed in collaboration with the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA-Casaccia). The tank contains molten salt ( called as solar salt a mixture of NaNO3 and KNO3 with a ratio of 60% to 40%) that was chosen as both the heat transfer fluid and thermal storage medium, after considering the operational temperature range of the mixture, its volumetric heat capacity, as well as economic considerations. The tank has a height of 2.8 m and volume of 8 m3, and is designed to operate at temperatures up to 600 °C in a non-pressurized environment, resulting in a total thermal storage capacity up to 1.3 MWh. . Five electrical heaters, with a total capacity of 45 kW, are installed as a backup to maintain the salt in a molten state at all times.
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

thermal energy storage

Year: 2014

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users

Micro-grid (35 kWe Photovoltaics, 10kWe wind turbine, 20kWe Solar Sitling Dishes)

Name: Micro-grid (35 kWe Photovoltaics, 10kWe wind turbine, 20kWe Solar Sitling Dishes)
Description: The PROTEAS micro-grid consists of several renewable energy technologies that are connected through a main inverter and can operate both on and off grid. The system consists of a 35kW Photovotaic Unit, a 10kW wind turbine, two Solar Stirling Dishes of 10kWe each connected with the batteries storage and the thermal storage. The micro-grid serves all the needs of the Facility on a daily basis and any excess of electricity is firstly stored in the batteries for short storage and then is converted into heat through electric elements in the molten salt storage. The system consists of a main inverter that is connected with several smart meters, that monitor and control the behaviour of the system and the demand.
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

electricity production and energy storage

Year: 2022

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users

2m3/day Multiple effect Distillation unit (MED)

Name: 2m3/day Multiple effect Distillation unit (MED)
Description: A custom designed 4-effect distillation unit (MED) was constructed to operate either in series or in parallel with the steam engine. The MED unit utilizes a low-temperature enthalpy source (as low as 70 °C) to evaporate a quantity of seawater, yielding distillate vapor and a pool of brine. The process occurs in a partially evacuated chamber, to reduce the boiling temperature of seawater. The produced vapor is ported to the next effect, where the latent heat released by its condensation is used to evaporate a new amount of seawater. The present MED, uses the forward feed configuration, where the brine pool from one effect is used as the seawater for the next effect. Additionally, this unit employs plate heat exchangers instead of the traditional shell-and-tube type heat exchangers, to obtain larger specific heat transfer area in a more compact design. The unit is designed to operate with a 10 kW thermal input and to produce up to 2 m3 of distillate product per day. The unit has a gain output ratio of 2.7 (~240 kWth/m3).
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

desalination and brine management

Year: 2014

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users

50m3/day Forward Osmosis Desalination unit (FO)

Name: 50m3/day Forward Osmosis Desalination unit (FO)
Description: This Forward Osmosis Unit with a capacity of 50m3/day, is installed and integrated with the thermal storage tank and steam loop, for desalinating sea water using thermal energy. Particularly, this high concentration Forward Osmosis (FO) pilot plant with a capacity of 50m3/day is consisted of an integrated thermal and membrane separation system utilizing a coalescer and Nanofiltration (NF) membrane processes as draw solution recovery components. This pilot plant is consisted of four stages: (i) pre-treatment system (ii) osmotically driven transport of water molecules across a hollow fiber membrane resulting in concentration of feed and dilution of the polymer draw solution, (iii) regeneration of polymer draw solution using a coalescer, and (iv) NF/RO post treatment system.
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

desalination and brine management

Year: 2020

Funding Source:

Private

Available for access
by external users

Baseline Surface Radiation Network Station (BSRN)

Name: Baseline Surface Radiation Network Station (BSRN)
Description: The Baseline Surface Radiation Network (BSRN) is a radiometric network initiated by the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) to support the climate research. The network aims at providing validation material for satellite radiometry and climate models. The objective of the BSRN is to provide observations of the best possible quality for short and long-wave surface radiation fluxes with a high sampling rate, which are believed to play an important role in climate change PROTEAS BSRN tower is equipped with the following sensors that record the following parameters: Direct Solar Irradiance/ Pyrheliometer ,Diffuse Solar Irradiance/ Pyranometer, Global Solar Irradiance/ Pyranometer, Down-welling infrared radiation/ Pyrgeometer, Sun Tracker, Data Acquisition System / Data logger + External GPS receiver DAQ GPS Meteorological sensors, Air temperature sensor Relative humidity ,Wind speed Wind direction Sky imaging camera
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

atmospheric and meteorological monitoring

Year: 2021

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users

Thermal Receiver (iSTORE)

Name: Thermal Receiver (iSTORE)
Description: A novel device integrating the receiver and storage functions, named Integrated Storage and Receiver (ISTORE) is used as thermal receiver for the heliostat field. As the name suggests, the aim and innovation of the design is to allow the merging of the thermal energy storage and receiver functions of a CSP point focusing system in one unit, therefore, reducing complexity, operational and capital costs. Solar radiation is directed from the heliostat field onto the internal surface of the cavity of the ISTORE. The external surface of the cavity is in contact with the molten salt in the storage tank that surrounds it. The receiver uses solar salt as the heat transfer fluid and storage medium.
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

solar thermal receiver

Year: 2014

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users

Steam loop and electricity production

Name: Steam loop and electricity production
Description: Steam and electricity production units are introduced to demonstrate the cogeneration of electricity and desalinated seawater. A forced circulation steam loop was designed, circulating water in a heat exchanger immersed in the molten salt to create saturated steam. This steam loop is in essence a Rankine cycle design combined with water desalination. A 10kWth/1.5kWe steam engine was procured and a custom 4-effect MED unit was developed and constructed for the co-generation of electricity and desalinated seawater, respectively. The exhaust steam from the turbine is used as thermal input to the desalination, while the remaining energy from the steam is used to preheat the seawater for the desalination process. In regard to thermal energy for driving the Rankine cycle, a heat exchanger consisting of a pair of coils was designed to preheat water from room temperature to 200 °C (saturated liquid state) and then steam at a temperature between 270 °C to 500 °C, depending on the solar salt temperature.
Units: 1
Hosting Laboratory / Department: EEWRC

Brief description of the utilization of the instrument:

heat, electricity and steam production

Year: 2014

Funding Source:

Available for access
by external users