Dr Julien Mouli-Castillo is working as a Research Fellow on the SynEnergy project hosted by the Energy and Sustainability Research Group at the University of Glasgow and led by Prof. Gioia Falcone.
Subsurface energy storage technologies (SST) have the potential to support the uptake of renewable energy while ensuring energy security. However, SSTs face high capital costs and uncertain investment risk profiles.
The UKRI-funded SynEnergy project aims to determine how combining SSTs over their operational lifetime can increase the efficiency and reduce the costs of energy storage. The project will gather information on these synergies, when they arise, and how to exploit them.
As part of the project, Mouli-Castillo and colleagues will characterize the synergies and incompatibilities between SSTs; use mechanistic modelling tools to integrate multiple SSTs at a single subsurface site; quantify the benefits from SST synergies at an individual site; conduct an economic evaluation of SST synergies; and finally, contextualize the technical and economic findings from an energy system perspective.
Mouli-Castillo, is currently seconded to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) in the USA, where he is collaborating with Dr. Hanna Breunig and Dr. Curtis Oldenburg. The project will be completed at the University of Glasgow by August 2026, in collaboration with Prof. Stuart Haszeldine at The University of Edinburgh.
The project is expected to have a significant impact in the areas of energy systems and geoenergy.
“Our aim is to develop a framework which allows the value of the synergies between SSTs to be correctly factored into techno-economic analysis and energy system models. This will ensure that when these tools are used to inform policy makers evaluating the sustainability of storage assets the true value of the subsurface is captured,” said Mouli-Castillo.
Image by Evgeni Tcherkasski from Pixabay
