Green and resilient flexible production processes (Processes4Planet partnership) (IA)

Expected Outcome:

Energy Intensive industries will benefit from the following outcomes:

• Increase significantly the process flexibility offering a step change in the capacity of individual production plants to promptly and frequently adapt to energy input variations over a significant range and with increased speed;
• Enable new flexible and efficient production processes, leading to economic and sustainability gains despite of volatile energy supply variations;
• Increase significantly raw material and energy efficiency while facing variations of the renewable energy input when compared to state-of-the-art industrial processes;
• Contribute to achieving EU climate neutrality objective as well as Commission recommendation of reducing EU GHG emissions by 90% by 2040 ^[1].

Scope:

Flexibility of energy intensive production processes is a necessity for the use of alternative energy carriers as the supply of energy by renewable sources is subject to significant variations and the competitive potential of energy storage is limited. The optimal use of the renewable energy supply will require processes that can perform fast transitions to allow continuous and efficient operation when the renewable energy input varies. The limiting factor addressed by the topic is the ability of the production plants to promptly change loads and throughputs in large ranges without negative consequences for the equipment, while staying energy and resource efficient. Storage options and use of several sources of renewable energy can be included, the combination (hybridation) of various decarbonisation technologies can also be considered.

Proposals under this topic should address all of the following:

• Address the redesign and modification of existing processes, including, as relevant, modifications of process steps or equipment and smart combinations of renewable energy sources, thereby improving the overall operation flexibility of the process and resulting in continuous efficient operation;
• Propose redesign and modification of plants and processes to increase their flexibility response rate (e.g., faster ramp up or ramp down) while maintaining a high energy- and resource efficiency;
• Demonstrate and evaluate material and energy efficiency gains from a holistic view of the processing plants and the energy systems as well as economic benefits by exploiting the price variations on the energy markets;
• Showcase improved performance, scalability and cost efficiency of the proposed solution through at least one realistic use case at pilot scale;
• Define necessary skills of the proposed solution, to enable their industrial implementation.

Digital tools and advanced control to support the operation and the flexibility of the processes can be elements of a solution.

The inclusion of a GHG avoidance methodology^[2] is recommended and should provide detailed description of baselines and projected reductions.

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. As project output an elaborated exploitation plan should be developed, including preliminary plans for scalability, commercialisation and deployment (feasibility study, business plan and financial model) indicating possible private and public funding sources (e.g. Innovation Fund, InvestEU and cohesion policy funds). Societal- and environmental impact as well as implications for the workplace (including skills and organisational changes) should be outlined.

This topic implements the co-programmed European partnership Processes4Planet.

[1] 2040 climate target - European Commission (europa.eu)

[2] That could follow Innovation Fund methodology: https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/innovfund/wp-call/2021/call-annex_c_innovfund-lsc-2021_en.pdf