Enhance collaboration between industry and heat pump stakeholders

forthcoming

The European energy system faced disruption in 2022 due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, raising concerns about energy security and affordability. In response, the EU launched the REPowerEU Plan in 2022 and the “Fit for 55” legislation to phase out reliance on Russian fossil fuels while focusing on the rapid deployment of renewables and energy efficiency. The EU Net-Zero Industry Act highlights heat pumps, geothermal, and solar as key technologies for decarbonization. The HP4INDUSTRY project aims to decarbonize industrial heating and cooling while maintaining competitiveness, focusing on heat pump solutions and offering replicable models for low- and medium-temperature processes. The EU process industries are leading the clean energy transition, producing components vital to the economy and ensuring European leadership. Industrial process heat, which consumes two-thirds of the sector’s energy, with 30% between 30°C and 400°C, is mostly fossil fuel-based, causing high emissions. The HP4INDUSTRY project targets this range, promoting alternative heating like solar, geothermal, and waste heat with heat pumps. The HP4INDUSTRY project has a 3-phase approach: 1: with data gathering to determine the frame of heat and cold supply and of the process industry; 2: with solutions provided and validated for selected industrial sectors before the project ends; 3: replication of these solutions and dissemination of project results to cover more industrial sectors before project ends but also after project duration. The project aims to cover the food and drink industry, the pulp and paper industry and the chemicals sector. These industries have process heat at low and medium temperatures, which are suitable for the application of heat pump.