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Date: Monday, January 19, 2026 |
The Power Cycle & Energy Systems Laboratory (PCESL) hosts the STEP Demo hardware, the world’s largest indirectly-heated supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) pilot facility. The STEP Demo project is a DOE-funded 10MWe pilot scale power plant, which is a next generation power cycle that promises higher cycle efficiencies and smaller equipment footprints compared to the incumbent steam Rankine cycle. The cycle could most-favorably be incorporated with heat sources ranging from nuclear (SMRs and fusion), bottoming cycles for gas turbines, advanced geothermal and concentrated solar power (CSP).
The facility consists of a 20,000 square foot building that houses the power cycle loop in the high bay, a dedicated control room, and assembly/fabrication areas. The site also has the heat source for the power cycle – an 80MWth HRSG-style process heater – and an evaporative cooling tower system with 25MWth of cooling. The reconfigurable power cycle operates as a closed Brayton cycle and the CO2 is kept above the critical point temperature and pressure at all locations in the loop.
The SwRI pumped thermal energy storage (PTES) facility was a first-of-a-kind demonstration focused on system controls and operation. The kW-scale facility was designed with closed loop simple-recuperated cycles for the heat pump and heat engine. The air-based system rated up to 400 degrees C and 50 psi has custom turbocompressor drivetrains for each mode and shares three heat exchangers and hot and cold thermal storage loops for both modes.
The Machinery Laboratory is a flexible and reconfigurable facility that enables testing of a variety of turbomachines to be tested for performance and operations. This laboratory has been used to test and demonstrate, compressors, turbines and heat exchangers as components. This laboratory has been critical to SwRI’s experience with supercritical carbon dioxide (sCO2) power cycle testing and development. This laboratory has hosted numerous sCO2 projects including the SunShot Turbine testing, the Apollo Compressor testing, the Ultra High Efficiency Integrally-Geared Compander (compressor / expander) testing, Sage turbine (geothermal application), and many other component tests. The facility includes electrical service and a variable frequency drive (VFD) to power motors up to 3MWe, the piping is rated for pressures up to 275 bar and the process heater can provide process fluid temperatures up to 715°C.