The specific challenge for waterborne transport call MG4.1 is, “To support developments that make new and existing vessels…more efficient and less polluting”. A sound way to support developments is, to demonstrate solutions that are sufficiently close to market so that ship owners will consider these in their future investment plans. Following this reasoning LeanShips will execute 8 demonstration actions that combine technologies for efficient, less polluting new/retrofitted vessels with end users’ requirements. Demonstrators were selected for their end-user commitment (high realisation chance), impact on energy use/emissions, EU-relevance, innovativeness and targeted-TRL at the project end. Selected technologies (TRL3-4 and higher) address engines/fuels/drive trains, hull/propulsors, energy systems/emission abatement technologies. Technologies are demonstrated mostly at full-scale and evidence is provided on energy and emission performance in operational environments. The LeanShips partnership contains ship owners, shipyards and equipment suppliers, in total 48 partners from industry (81%) and other organisations. Industry has a leading role in each demonstrator. Target markets are the smaller-midsized ships for intra-European waterborne transport, vessels for offshore operations and the leisure/cruise market. First impact estimates show fuel saving of up to 25 %, CO2 at least up to 25%, and SOx/NOx/PM 10-100%. These estimates will be updated during the project. First market potential estimates for the LeanShips partnership and for markets beyond the partnership are promising. Project activities are structured into 3 layers: Basis layer with 8 focused demonstrators (WP 04-11), Integration layer with QA, Innovation Platform and Guide to Innovation (WP02), Dissemination and Market-uptake (WP03), and top Management layer (WP01), in total 11 Work Packages. The demonstrators represent an industry investment of ca. M€ 57, the required funding is M€ 17,25.

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 12 partners from 5 different countries, including 4 research organizations, 1 large End User, 3 SMEs and 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.