Review - 2nd NEFI-Conference

An increased use of volatile renewable energy sources in industrial energy systems necessitates integrated and cross-sectoral energy infrastructure planning, as well as optimised flexibility integration. Against this background, the topics of this session included energy management and storage, innovative energy conversion technologies and demand-side management (DSM) solutions.

This session focuses on the development of technological and systemic utilisation solutions for industrial energy flow, such as process heat, in order to meet energy demand. Such energy networks not only minimise industrial energy demand for production energy, but also primary energy demand for the overall energy system. The utilisation of industrial waste heat or the adoption of novel heat exchange technologies are two highly beneficial solutions that can be applied, both of which will be explored in this session.

This session will address technological and systemic utilisation strategies to accelerate the industrial energy transition in order to meet industrial energy demand while reducing process-related CO₂ emissions. Against this background, the topics of this session include options to reduce dependency on natural gas, as well as sustainable technologies to transform Austria’s material products industry.

This session focuses on the decarbonisation of industrial processes, such as lowering CO₂ emissions through efficient energy use and the use of novel technologies or processes. Disruptive process technologies, optimisation strategies and alternative process routes will be particular focus of this session.

This session covered technological and systemic utilisation solutions for industrial heat networks, such as industrial heat pumps or heat exchange systems, which have been developed to meet industrial thermal demand. The use of industrial heat pumps or the adoption of novel heat exchange technologies are two solutions that can be highly beneficial in reducing not only the energy demand of industrial production, but also the primary energy demand of the whole energy network.

The energy transition is also a heat transition, and this aspect has hardly been talked about so far. Since the beginning of the year, the energy crisis has brought this challenge into the public sphere. At the NEFI Talk "Decarbonisation of heating and cooling supply with geothermal energy and industrial waste heat" on 14.10.2022 in Linz, five keynotes highlighted the possibilities of how heating and cooling networks can be decarbonised with the help of geothermal energy and industrial waste heat.

The industrial sector aims to make use of green electricity as a source for energy and feedstock production towards reducing climate impacts. Electrifying industry implies important changes to processes and also influences the entire energy supply chain.

Theresia Vogel (Managing Director of the Climate and Energy Funds, Austria) and moderator Simon Moser (Energy Institute at the JKU Linz, Austria) opened the IETS Task 19 Workshop and welcomed nearly 70 national and international participants on 14th of October 2022 within the NEFI-New Energy for Industry 2022 Conference.

Simon Moser (Energy Institute at the JKU Linz, Austria): The electrification of industry is an important topic and crucial for decarbonisation. It is one major pathway to industrial decarbonisation, but it implies that two major things must happen: Renewable power must be made available and many industrial processes must be extensively changed. The electrification of industry will also lead to changes in the whole energy system.

Theresia Vogel emphasized the importance of visibility at both the national and international level thanks to a strong portfolio of projects and importance of including the users at an early stage.

·   Projects have shown that it’s not just about patents, but also pilot plants. Policy likes to see concrete projects.

·   Emphasis on ghg reductions in projects and long-term to keep the enterprises in the projects therefore economic success and incentives are important.

·   Challenges: War in Ukraine. Supply chain delays. Lack of workforce in fields of technologies at universities. Industry is paying more. Brain drain to industry leading to a lack of innovation in the research environment.

This workshop aimed to give an overview about the broad topic of industrial electrification, its importance in the decarbonisation innovation system, and its international context: technologies for direct and indirect electrification, country-specific perspectives from the IEA IETS Task 19 participants, energy resource demand from industries, demand for system and infrastructure services. Here are some key takeaways of the presentations:

Jana Reiter, AEE Intec Austria, emphasized that we need to consider how we use what we have. Don’t electrify the things that we don’t need to. Prioritise and use electrification in an efficient manner and in the very difficult cases.

Gerwin Drexler-Schmidt, Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), Austria, called for industry to look at what is really needed from its steam system. They often use standardized but too high temperatures. This makes it hard to realize heat pumps.

Alla Toktarova, Chalmers University, Sweden, noted that current locations of steel making location determinants are dominantly steered by raw material supply. But future possible locations could more strongly determined by availability to low-cost renewables electricity generation.

Jenny Lindborg, RISE Research Institute of Sweden, elaborated on the system perspective of hydrogen production and its connection to district heating.

Jonathan Moncada Botero, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, discussed life-cycle aspects of fertilizer production. Production requires energy inputs which are difficult to decarbonise, such as heat, and also needs carbon as a non-energetic input.

We would like to thank all speakers, participants and the moderator Simon Moser!