There are few substances more important to construction than concrete. In modern times it continues to change the way the world looks,
creating everything from multi-storey car parks to dams, from driveways to bridges, from breakwaters to the structure of the Burj Khalifa.
As if all of these applications were not enough, it is now being used in one of the most cutting-edge industries: solar thermal energy.
EnergyNest, a Norwegian company, has joined forces with Abu Dhabi’s Masdar Institute of Science and Technology to demonstrate how concrete can be used to store heat in solar power plants, a function often carried out by molten salt.
EnergyNest’s system has been installed at Masdar with the aim of demonstrating that the technology works and with the hope that it could be used by concentrated solar power (CSP) plants.
“We’re in negotiation with companies that want to implement this into their system. We’re ready to do that today. This is the whole point of the Masdar Institute project – to show the world that here you have a cost-effective alternative to molten salt that is scalable and that has low cost over time with regards to operation and maintenance,” said Jon Bergan, EnergyNest’s project manager during the construction of the plant.
As an alternative, EnergyNest’s technology instead uses a form of concrete with improved thermal properties called Heatcrete, developed with a German company, HeidelbergCement. Its composition is commercially confidential, although Bergan said it contained significant quantities of a rock called quartzite.
Although the Masdar work involves CSP, EnergyNest said its technology had “broad application value” since it could be used in a number of sectors. The system can be adjusted for whatever size is needed because the configuration of pipes and concrete blocks is fully modular.
