Pilot Plants
End-to-end development of piloting and technology scale-up projects, from the conceptualisation of new processes and the definition of their validation strategy to the design, construction and operation of pilot plants for their demonstration and industrialisation.
Between the laboratory and the first industrial plant there is a jump in scale at which it is decided whether a technology is viable. A poorly planned pilot plant consumes budget and does not answer the questions the investor or the client needs answered.
Technology centres and universities that need an experimental facility, companies developing their own process that have to demonstrate it at scale, and R&D consortia that need a partner to design, build and operate the plant.
Technology and research centresUniversitiesTechnology-based companiesProcess industryR&D consortia
From concept to industrialisation
A piloting project is planned backwards: first you define what data the industrial plant needs, and then you design the pilot plant capable of obtaining it. CADE covers all three phases, together or separately.
Design and development
A process that works in the laboratory does not behave the same at a larger scale: heat and mass transfer, hydrodynamics and control all change. CADE studies the scalability of the process, defines what the pilot plant has to demonstrate and sizes it; if the goal is a pre-commercial reference, it designs the demonstration plant.
- Scalability studies
- Pilot plant design
- Demonstration plants
Engineering and integration
A pilot plant concentrates pressure equipment, high temperature and instrumentation from every discipline in a small space, often under conditions that no off-the-shelf equipment covers. CADE carries out the process and detail engineering, and fabricates and integrates the plant in its Innovation Factory in Albacete.
- Process engineering
- Fabrication and integration
Validation and industrialisation
The value of a pilot plant lies in the data it produces. CADE commissions it, defines and runs the test campaigns and transfers the results to the design of the industrial plant.
- Commissioning and validation
- Industrialisation
CADE's pilot and demonstration plants
Facilities that CADE has designed, built or integrated to validate its own and third-party technologies.
Thermal storage · CIIAE
Pilot plant of the Iberian Centre for Research in Energy Storage (CIIAE), in Cáceres, for testing molten salts, phase change materials, solids and adsorbents. CADE is responsible for the supply, installation and commissioning.
Solar steam with storage · EDITOR
Demonstration plant at a beverage factory in Limassol (Cyprus): a 125 kWt parabolic trough field and a 600 kWh concrete thermal storage system supply steam at 188 °C and 11 bar continuously, including at night. CADE was responsible for the engineering and integration of the system.
Supercritical water gasification · SCWG
Pilot plant for the hydrothermal gasification technology developed by CADE, which converts wet biomass and residual organic streams into renewable gases.
Digital twins
Before construction, the digital twin of the pilot plant makes it possible to simulate its behaviour, adjust the design and plan the test campaigns. During operation, it compares real data with the model and helps validate the scale-up. CADE develops it with its SimulTWIN platform.
Technical articles
- Pilot Plants, Thermal Energy Storage
Describe your case and a CADE specialist will analyse it.