Last Tuesday, May 17th, RE4Industry Consortium got together for its first Review Meeting with the European Commission. The partners, joining online from all over the EU, successfully showcased the progress of the project in the first 18 months and the next steps for the second period of the project. The most relevant achievements of the project so far could be summarized as follows:
⚡ The creation of a strong collaborative network that enhances the alignment of all the parties involved in the industrial decarbonisation value chain. Several advisory panels which are actively collaborating with the project, have been populated, providing knowledge on the Energy Intensive Industry sectors. Particularly, there were established 4 National Clusters (DE, ES, GR and NL), 4 EU level Expert Groups (EIIs, Renewables, Policy and Social) and 5 Committees (4 national level, 1 EU level). These panels involved different stakeholders who are providing very valuable feedback for the project to widen the knowledge on the EIIs sector, renewable energy markets and technology, policy and legal framework, and social alignment, among others. Up to date, 85 engaged actors are already participating in these panels.
⚡ Consolidated drafts of dedicated reports to analyse and understand the current reality of the EII sectors at EU and national levels (DE, ES, GR and NL) will be released very soon. Additionally, the RE4Industry mapping tool is already operating, showing the efforts of the EII sectors in Europe towards decarbonisation, in terms of verified emissions data per installation (data obtained from the EU-ETS). Identified success cases are being also visualised through the tool, as examples of good practices.
⚡ First assessment of technology needs, barriers and opportunities for REs integration in the three industrial case studies of the project (SIDENOR, MYTILINEOS and CORBION) have been deeply developed, in order to materialize a Decarbonisation Action Plan for these companies by the project’s end. Further efforts regarding financial and legal aspects will be dedicated in the second period.
⚡ RE4Industry is performing a deep analysis of the currently available technologies for REs integration in the industry in the short and long term. In the short-term framework, different technologies have been identified as the most suitable for the generation of renewable heat (ie. Heat pumps, geothermal, biomass, biofuels and green hydrogen) and renewable power (on-site generation through photovoltaics and PPAs acquisition from off-site photovoltaics, on/off-shore wind or hydraulic). In the long-term, the most promising technologies are particularly focused on the production of synthetic fuels from captured CO2, in addition to improvements on currently available technologies which need further developments (such as green hydrogen, heat pumps or geothermal).
⚡ First cross-border actions have been already planned to be executed in the second half of the project in additional countries such as Austria, Finland, Romania and Croatia. The most relevant findings and achievements of the project will be transferred to additional stakeholders of the EII sectors, promoting the sectoral alignment to finally achieve this great decarbonisation goal.
⚡ Dissemination and communication actions have been key since the very first beginning of the project, being present in different EU or international level conferences (EUBCE, EU Industry week, EUSEW, SE SDEWES, among others). And very active in terms of the news releases, social media channels and website.
