Preliminary Circularity & Sustainable by design report

Concentrated Solar Power coupled with Thermal Energy Storage (CSP-TES) is receiving increasingly attention, due to its potential to contribute to climate neutrality and industrial decarbonisation, enhancing the EU’s leading role in energy-related innovations. In fact, this technology has the ability to enable electricity generation even during periods of low solar irradiation, due to the thermal storage capacity of the TES system. However, it can also present some concerns, when considering resource extraction, manufacturing, operation and end-oflife. In this regard, understanding the lifecycle impacts is essential for selecting the options with highest results and lowest environmental burdens.The Safe and Sustainable by Design (SSbD) framework, combined with Circular Economy (CE) strategies, aim to address the major concerns related to the safety, sustainability and circularity of innovations, by minimising overall negative impacts from early design-phase. While the safety steps of the SSbD framework are focused on hazard and exposure assessment, the sustainability is closely aligned with two other major concepts: ecodesign and circularity. In fact, the SSbD approach is consistent with the ISO 14006 guidance to continuously improve sustainability performance through design, while also integrating risk minimisation and circularity as design criteria. To achieve this, eight key guiding design principles are proposed in the SSbD framework. These address material efficiency, resource use, substitution of hazardous substances, energy efficiency, emission and pollution prevention, reduction of human/environmental exposure, consideration of end-of-life and adoption of lifecycle perspective.Considering the Design for Environmental (DfE) separate terminology for ecodesign, the remaining Design for X (DfX) strategies can be selected to address the overall environmental, health and safety issues, across a product’s lifecycle or performance. In this regard, the Design for Circularity (DfC) represents a broader approach that integrates principles from various DfX methods to design products that fit into a circular economy. Furthermore, the DfC can be directly linked to the safety aspect of the SSbD framework through the safe circularity interface. This avoids the recirculation of hazardous materials and the creation of “toxic cycles”, through the selection of safe and sustainable materials. These materials flows can be assessed through the Material Circularity Indicator (MCI), supporting decision-making, aligned with circular economy principles. The SSbD framework also integrates socioeconomic dimensions, ensuring that innovations are not only beneficial to the environment but also economically viable and socially responsible. Additionally, it addresses the critical raw materials issue, through the search of solutions to minimise or replace them, due to the high risk of supply disruption that they bear.Based on these concepts, a methodology was developed for ongoing interaction with the developers of COOPERANT innovations. These interactions took place in months 6, 9, and 12 of the project, during the development phase of TES materials, namely Solid Stats Materials and Phase Change Materials. The purpose of this document is to present the results of this interaction, namely the ecodesign guidelines for COOPERANT CSP-TES. In this first stage, the guidelines focus on TES materials and propose perspectives for the integration of the CSP-TES system. Guidelines for the replicability of this technology in other sectors are also presented.