Integrated use of renewable energy carriers in industrial sites (Processes4Planet partnership) (RIA)

Expected Outcome:Energy Intensive industries will benefit from the following outcomes:

• Enable the integrated use of different types of renewable energy carriers in industrial sites[1] with the aim to provide a constant robust low-carbon and economic energy input to process industries;
• Pave the way for strategic industrial cooperation to cope with fluctuations of the energy inputs and to achieve overall energy and cost efficiency;
• Support stability and operational flexibility of the power grid, including implementation of storage solutions to buffer energy demand peaks;
• Enable the use of renewable energy labelling and documentation, scheduling of energy use and price compensation models to achieve optimal grid load;
• Improve the technical and economic feasibility of the integrated use of renewable energy carriers in industrial sites compared to other solutions with a similar CO2 reduction potential.

Scope:There is a broad range of renewable energy carriers (e.g., electricity, hydrogen, solar heat, ammonia, etc) which can be utilised in the process industries. Many of them are provided with significant temporal variations, e.g., renewable electricity and solar heat. Integrated design and operation of these highly complex systems within process industry sites are needed to cope with the fluctuations of the energy inputs and to achieve overall energy and cost efficiency. Industrial symbiosis and integration of production systems with energy systems in industrial sites can ensure overall emission reduction. These approaches can increase the efficiency of generation and enable solutions that avoid losses, supporting stability and efficiency of power systems.

Proposals under this topic should:

• Develop highly efficient technologies for, and prototype designs of, integrated structures of industrial sites, including storage elements and solutions for their integrated operation under varying conditions;
• Take due account of logistic aspects, risk assessment and management at plant level;
• Develop systemic solutions embracing industrial symbiosis, and if relevant, contribute to further evolution of existing Hubs4Circularity[2];
• Consider the interaction with the supply side, in particular electric power grids, hydrogen pipelines or district heating;
• Demonstrate full integration and use of advanced digital technologies from fields of distributed process control strategies, and data driven AI based optimisation and the application of model-based technologies for the improved, safe and efficient operation of industrial plants and sites, including the interaction with different grids;
• Demonstrate and evaluate energy efficiency and CO2 footprint reduction by optimal integration of energy from renewable sources as well as providing demand side flexibility;
• Propose new ways to adapt the workplaces and organisation of site management to ensure that the solutions can be widely implemented.

Proposals should include energy efficiency, techno-economic and life-cycle assessment considerations of the overall process.

Proposals should consider representative real industrial sites demonstrating the solutions at least in open-loop computations. This should be done in parallel to the actual operation of the plants with validation of the benefits by simulations with accurate models. Experiments involving real industrial sites are encouraged.

Proposals should actively pursue involvement of all actors in the value chain, from industrial sites management to plant operators, and renewable energy providers. Interoperability as well as secure and trusted data sharing between stakeholders in the value chain should be considered, in accordance with the FAIR[3] data principles. Proposals submitted under this topic should include a business case and exploitation strategy (as outlined in the introduction to this Destination) underlining how the proposal will serve the purpose to boost industrial decarbonisation technologies supply chain in Europe.

A strategy for skills development to master the challenges of such integrated systems should be included associating social partners. Attention should be given to using results from existing initiatives that have developed education and skills development concepts in this area.

This topic implements the co-programmed European partnership Processes4Planet.

[1] Industrial sites refers to industrial clusters, hubs, parks formed by several plants of the energy intensive industries. Large individual plants may be considered in those sectors where plants are not typically integrated in industrial sites.

[2] Hubs4Circularity (h4c-community.eu);Horizon Europe strategic plan 2025-2027-KI0223326ENN.pdf (page 94)

[3] Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable data