The FlexRICAN project brings together three prominent ESFRI infrastructures that have or will have, when in operation different usages of energy: the European Spallation Source ERIC (ESS) in Sweden, the Extreme Light Infrastructure ERIC (ELI), with two running facilities (Czech Republic and Hungary) and the European Magnetic Field Laboratory AISBL (EMFL), with facilities in Grenoble and Nijmegen for DC fields and Dresden and Toulouse for pulsed fields (CNRS, SRU, HZDR) and industrial partners being key actors of the energy sector, Alfa Laval (AL) and Energy Pool (EP).
The RI’s and partners involved in FlexRICAN will unite their strengths to optimise their ongoing (and/or future) energy projects. They will demonstrate that the RIs, as electro-intensive actors, are at a good scale for developing an energy approach to the provision of services to the European electrical grid through optimized energy flexibility and to local heating networks by developing Waste Heat Recovery projects.
FlexRICAN will demonstrate how research infrastructures as electro-intensive actors can enhance energy flexibility for the European electrical grid and contribute to local heating networks through Waste Heat Recovery projects.
Through the development of a multi-energy approach integrating academic knowledge and two key actors of the energy sector, Alfa Laval (AL) and Energy Pool (EP), FlexRICAN will propose new technologies and solutions to increase resource use efficiency and reduce environmental impacts of European Research Infrastructures (RIs). The project will focus on assessing and validating the implementation of new solutions and technologies at the three ESFRI infrastructures involved.
Prototypes and solutions will be developed and tested to identify solutions at the real scale of the infrastructures. It will contribute to quantifying energy services and carbon print gain the RIs can perform throughout their full life cycle to increase the long-term sustainability of European Research Infrastructures and to contribute to the resilience of the energetical European system.