Full-scale demonstration of heat upgrade solutions in industrial processes

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Based on the results of the project, at least one industrial sector with a significant heating demand in the EU and Associated Countries develops pathways and business models to measurably increase the recovery and upgrade of locally available heat for covering process needs and significantly or totally phasing out of fossil fuel use, while preserving or enhancing its global competitiveness.
• Measurable improvement of renewable and/or industrial excess/waste heat recovery and upgrade solutions, possibly combined with thermal and/or electrical energy storage, in terms of energy efficiency, flexibility of electrical demand, climate and environment protection, reliability and safety, physical and cyber security, and profitability.

Scope:

This topic aims to satisfy the need for process heat in the more industrial sectors by upgrading excess/waste heat from the process itself, possibly combined with heat recovered in nearby locations or local renewable heat, as a cost-efficient way to improve energy efficiency and reduce the GHG emissions and air pollutants and the use of fossil fuels. Thermal and/or electrical energy storage can be integrated, if it can contribute to better matching heat sources with process needs and/or to offer more flexible electricity consumption from the grid.

The temperature of the heat supplied to the process is not specified, but the proposals will be evaluated on their potential to enable the deployment of heat upgrade solutions in more sector(s) and process(es), where they are not yet state-of-the art.

Projects must address all the following items:

• Optimise and demonstrate physically within one or more operational industrial site(s), the transformation of process(es) in at least one industrial sector, by recovering excess/waste heat from the process itself, possibly combined with local renewable heat or heat recovered in nearby locations and local thermal and/or electrical energy storage, and by upgrading the heat (e.g. with heat pump) for use in the process(es).
• Maximise the replicability and deployment of the concept/solution in the EU and Associated Countries’ plants in the same industrial sector. Already before starting the design phase, the needs of most EU and Associated Countries’ factories in the same industrial sector(s) should be surveyed and analysed in order to design a solution that can be adapted to meet most of them.
• Identify common components, optimise and define a standardised version of them.
• Develop open technical and economical guidelines and open tools for system design and business case development.
• In case the targeted industrial sector(s) and process(es) has/have been covered by the actions under the topic LIFE-2024-CET-HEATPUMPS^[1], this proposal should build on the results of these actions and if possible, cooperate with them, both for the definition of the solution to demonstrate and the dissemination channels.
• Disseminate results notably (but not only) to the relevant communities in cluster 4 ‘Digital, Industry and Space’ private-public partnerships and to JRC Sevilla and INCITE for work on BREFs in the context of the IED2.0.

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[1] https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/life-2024-cet-heatpumps