An Industrial Symbiosis Incubator for Maximizing Waste Heat/Cold Efficiency in Industrial Parks and Districts

An Industrial Symbiosis Incubator for Maximizing Waste Heat/Cold Efficiency in Industrial Parks and Districts

EU is currently responsible for 11.6% of the world's final energy consumption (9425 Mtoe in 2014) and for 10.8% of the world's final CO2 emissions (33.3 GtCO2 in 2014) with Industry accounting for 25.9% of the energy consumption and for 47.7% of the final CO2 emissions. Energy in industry is mostly used for process heating and cooling, which represents about 63% of the total industry final energy demand. A rather significant theoretical waste heat potential, accounting to 370.41 TWh (Waste heat) per year, has been estimated in the European industry. Energy Intensive Industries (EEIs) are unsurprisingly the top heat emitters. On the other hand, it is estimated that at least 50-70% of EU households could be served more cheaply by thermal infrastructure through district heating networks. District heating currently provides only 8% of the heating demand in Europe. There is therefore an opportunity for increasing energy efficiency growth rates and contributing significantly to the decarbonization targets of European Industry by using the large underutilized energy resources found throughout European EEIs to substitute conventional heat sources in the European industrial and urban sector. The overall objective of INCUBIS is: To help decarbonise European industry by 2050 by unlocking the market potential of ENERGY SYMBIOSIS through developing and deploying five (5) Energy Symbiosis Incubators across Europe, complemented by a digital Cloud Incubator, thus enabling the utilization of waste energy from EEIs. In doing so INCUBIS will achieve total energy savings of 200GWh/year, trigger €6 Million of investments in sustainable energy, generate benefits of €4 Million, achieve GHG reduction of 55k tCO2-eq/year, and convince 1450 business over 40 industrial parks to commit to energy cooperation. To achieve this INCUBIS has put together a prestigious consortium of 8 partners including 5 SMEs that span 6 European countries and will work for the duration of 36 months.