EPHYRA will demonstrate the integration of a first-of-its-kind renewable hydrogen production facility at industrial scale in South-eastern Europe by employing an improved electrolysis technology, at a scale of 30 MW. The large-scale electrolysis will be integrated with industrial operations within MOH’s Corinth Refinery, one of the top refineries in Europe and the largest privately-owned industrial complex in Greece. It will be operated for at least 2 years under commercial conditions and will supply renewable hydrogen to the refinery’s processes and external end-users. The industrially integrated renewable hydrogen production will be developed around a circular economy, industrial symbiotic approach, as the electrolyser will be coupled with (i) renewable electricity production, (ii) renewable electricity storage, (iii) an innovative waste heat harvesting technology, (iv) water use environmental optimisation, (v) valorisation of produced oxygen in current MOH Refinery operations, (vi) a digital twin and (vii) a dedicated energy management system. EPHYRA will contribute to all electrolysis technology KPIs as detailed in Clean Hydrogen Partnership SRIA objectives. Therefore, the project will demonstrate its reliability for green hydrogen production at the lowest possible cost thus enabling the EU renewable hydrogen economy, industry decarbonisation and zero-emission fuels uptake. EPHYRA will be implemented by a strong consortium with robust research, innovation and industrial capabilities, able to successfully deliver the project within time, budget and detail objectives. The aim of EPHYRA is to enhance European synergies on the globally expanding hydrogen market and build a unique value proposition on industrial symbiotic renewable hydrogen production.

As part of the EU strategic agenda to build a climate-neutral and green Europe, increasing energy efficiency of industry is among the priorities of the Green Deal. Process heat has a significant weight in the total energy demand of the European industry and increased energy efficiency of industry through the recovery and upgrade of waste heat is one of the first steps towards decarbonization in the industrial sector. Although different heat upgrade technologies exist, their wide deployment is not taking place due to different technical and non-technical barriers hindering the uptake. PUSH2HEAT will aim to overcome these implementation barriers and push forward the market potential and business models of heat upgrade technologies by real full scale demonstration of different heat upgrade systems in relevant industrial sectors with high waste heat recovery and upgrading potential, with supply temperature in the range 90-160ºC. Different heat upgrade technologies will be scaled-up to optimize their efficiency and economic performance and demonstrated in selected industrial demo-sites covering a representative sample of the most relevant industrial processes with heat recovery potential. Economic and country specific regulatory barriers, summed up to the technical ones, greatly influence the deployment of the heat upgrade technologies. To tackle this, PUSH2HEAT intends to demonstrate suitable busines models and dedicated exploitation roadmaps for a higher penetration of heat upgrade systems aiming to contribute to meet the industry decarbonization targets. For achieving its ambitions, PUSH2HEAT consortium gathers different heat upgrade technology manufacturers, industrial end-users where demonstrations will take place, engineering and business oriented companies as well as expert RTD partners in the field, together with the European association representing the heat upgrade technologies stakeholders.

Within HURRICANE a sector-coupling circular hub centered around the ArcelorMittal Ghent site will be created. We will target efficient resource management together with the recovery and utilization of squandered industrial waste heat and water. Together with ArcelorMittal Ghent’s ongoing initiatives, this will lead to a reduction of energy, water and raw materials by at least 20%. Thanks to the ongoing projects taking place within and around the Ghent site, the site is already well connected to many other industries like waste suppliers, chemical producers (ethanol offtake & H2 waste gas), renewable power producers, and wastewater treatment. It has become a multi-sectoral hub leading to efficient implementation of industrial symbiosis concepts. The Ghent site has a significant amount of recyclable energy, material and water that allows this symbiosis. These aspects are not only from the steel making processes, but also from other operations taking place in the mentioned “multi-sectoral” hub. This hub, can be further enhanced with the integration of waste heat with its ongoing initiatives. Our solution aims at developing and demonstrating novel heat recovery (heat exchanger) and upgrading (heat pumps) solutions from selected operations and then coupling it with the internal and external off takers by means of a heat grid. With digital tools, aspects like broadening the district heating network, and adapting the heat demand profile of the buildings to better match the intermittent of the waste heat can be optimized. Finally, an integrated software tool for circular hubs that combines the different tools and data produced at the different operations will be developed and validated. Through two virtual demonstrations and a circular hubs blueprint the replication potential will be proven. The consortium is formed by 13 partners from 4 different countries, including 4 research organizations, 1 large End User, 3 industrial parties, 1 SME, 3 civil organizations and 1 linked 3rd party.

While Europe undertakes an energy and ecological transition toward cleaner way of producing electricity, transportation and heating remains highly dependent of fossil fuels. We believe that heating systems in Europe could be rapidly transformed into low carbon systems using geothermal sources coupled with efficient heat pump, and that this transformation can be done with great benefit, a reduction of the cost of energy and the use of a well-known almost unlimited resource: the geothermal energy. Technologies are available, the potential is big, regulatory barriers are low, but new players are required to make things change on the market at a greater scale. Since Fall 2012, Enertime is developing PAC’RET, a new concept of industrial high temperature heat pump (above 80°C) with a high performance proprietary compressor. A conceptual study has been started in 2013, involving university of Liege for support in cycle definition and EPFL in Lausanne for the compressor aero dynamical design. Enertime wants to perform a feasibility study /market study for its innovative flexible heat pump PAC’RET using geothermal energy as primary heat sources in Europe. This study will be conducted with the support of GZB, the International Geothermal Centre based in Bochum, Germany as subcontractor Ahead is the opportunity to transform centralized carbon intensive district heating networks into low carbon distributed District Heating powered by geothermal energy, possibly using also the Heat pump to absorb excess electricity production using the thermal inertia of the District Heating network.

Energy efficiency of intensive industrial processes and particularly waste heat recovery technologies have been identified by international and regional organization like IEA, EU or ADEME in France as a major game changer for CO2 emissions reduction. The DECAGONE consortium led by ENERTIME proposes a project demonstrating the potential of ORC technology in waste heat-to-power conversion for self-consumption of industrial plants at a large industrial scale. Targeting the waste heat potential of the company TŘINECKÉ ŽELEZÁRNY (mother company of partner Energetika Trinec), located in Czech Republic and historical manufacturer of iron & steel, the DECAGONE project will develop a an innovative ORC-based WHR system using enhanced capture designs and disruptive turbomachinery. The proposed hermetic turbogenerator design will run on innovative active magnetic bearings for increased compacity, higher availability and safety and cost reduction with near-zero maintenance. Dedicated studies improve organic fluids or mixtures for higher stability and improved transposability to other industries. The project will also provide advanced monitoring using innovative probes, IOT and machine learning algorithms for real-time efficiency improvement. Within the scope of the project at 6 others significant industrial sectors will be evaluated in terms of potential market and transposability at the European scale (aluminum, gas-energy, oil&gas, glass, LNG and cogeneration). New financing and business models will also be investigated, supporting long term operations of the erected assets, coping with long-lasting and resilient industrial processes. The use of the ESCO model to contract, finance and operate energy efficiency facilities will be part of the Project preparing for the future operation of the facility by a specialized company. Lastly diffusion of good practices all over Europe will use European partners in the consortium in coordination with Regional energy agencies.