France's Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) is a Research and Technology Organization (RTO) and a full member of EARTO. It aims to produce, integrate and transfer science and technology to help resolve the main EU challenges (low carbon energies, defense and security, information and healthcare technologies) and to exploit opportunities for new wealth creation, improved standards of living, and economic competitiveness. CEA brings together key players across the whole innovation chain, from fundamental to technological research, from product and process development to prototyping and demonstration, and support full-scale implementation in the public and private sectors. CEA has a budget of 4.1 billion€ (2015), nearly 16 000 employees and file more than 500 patents /year.

Within CEA, LITEN (Laboratory for Innovation in New Energy Technologies) is fully dedicated to the program on new technologies for renewable energy and energy efficiency, in line with the French Grenelle environment summit, the Lisbon strategy and the European strategic plan for energy technologies. This includes research in solar energy (photovoltaic and thermal solar, integration in buildings, solar mobility, smart grids, massive storage etc.), conducted by INES (Institut national de l’énergie solaire), the production and storage of energy (hydrogen, fuel cells, batteries for electric vehicles), the development of 2^nd and 3^rd generation biofuels, and nanomaterials for energy. LITEN employs nearly 1000 people, has a budget of 140M€, and works with more than 350 industrial partners.

CEA will have the charge of Task 8.1 Techno-economic study. The objective of the work is to estimate the hydrogen production cost from a commercial plant based on the HYDROSOL–beyond technology. From an economic perspective, the first step will consist in defining the plant based on inputs provided by partners including experience feedback collected during technology development (flowsheet at industrial level and related costs, best-suited technologies, technology performances…). This action will enable to determine, the CAPEX and OPEX breakdowns, performance outputs etc. Then a cost effectiveness analysis will be conducted. For its technical activities, CEA-LITEN will use the complementarity of several of its laboratories gathered within a dedicated Heat, Bioresources and Hydrogen department, especially Demonstrators and Energetic Systems Laboratory for economic studies and the Thermodynamic and Solar Systems Laboratory that focuses on CSP technology.