SASGO

Presentation

The project “Research on solar energy harvesting and storage by means of Active Asphalt Surfaces and Enhanced Geothermal Systems” (SASGO in the original Spanish), with reference BIA2013-40917-R, is financed by the Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness and funded by the State General Budget (PGE) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER).

This project aims to design and develop new asphalt surfaces with which to catch solar energy in the form of heat that helps to heat up a fluid that moves around it. Parallel to this catchment system and with the object to avoid the main problem of solar energy, its lack of both daily and seasonal continuity, new geothermal mortars will be developed and, in general, forms of storage in the field of the solar energy caught to boost its optimal use.

The system applications would go from the supply of domestic hot water (DHW) up to the air conditioning/heating of buildings, including the reduction of the risk of ice sheets and the accumulation of snow in roads and building roofs.

The specific objectives around which the methodology of the project is organized are:

• Characterization of the most suitable materials, as well as the system geometry and layout, for the catchment of the greatest amount of solar energy.
• Characterization of the materials and additives that help to optimize the storage in the area of the caught heat.
• Study of the system efficiency as a whole in relation to the climatic area to adapt the design to every specific need.
• Study of the degradation of the materials used in the catchment of heat and Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) of the constitutive elements of the final system.