PUSH2HEAT: Pushing forward the market potential of heat upgrade technologies

An EU-funded project aims to overcome the barriers to the deployment of heat pump technologies for heat upgrading in the industrial sector

Increasing the energy efficiency of European industry is crucial to achieving Europe’s climate goals. Waste heat recovery and heat upgrading are important steps towards saving energy and decarbonising the industrial sector. However, even though different heat pump technologies for heat upgrading exist, technical, economic and regulatory barriers prevent them from being used.

The EU-funded PUSH2HEAT project, which kicked off on October 1, 2022, will address this challenge.

“The industry’s potential for industrial decarbonisation through high-temperature heat pumps is huge. For applications of up to 200ºC, heat pumps could potentially deliver 730 terawatt hours per year – which is 37% of the process heat required by European industry. This could potentially avoid 146 Mt CO2 eq emissions per year. The real market, however, is still limited. Therefore, we will identify how to overcome the existing barriers by scaling up four heat upgrade technologies and assessing the difficulties and solutions encountered” – said Maider Epelde from Tecnalia Research and Innovation, coordinator of the project.

These technologies, with a supply temperature range from 90°C to 160°C, will be demonstrated in four selected industrial sites from the sectors paper and chemical industry.

The four year project will also demonstrate which business models can help push the use of heat upgrade systems. Its final goal is to increase the market potential of waste heat valorisation.

Fundación Tecnalia Research and Innovation coordinates PUSH2HEAT. The project consortium gathers heat upgrading technology manufacturers, industrial end-users, business-oriented companies, research companies, universities and representatives of the heat pump industry.

PUSH2HEAT is a project funded through the Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under the Grant Agreement No. 101069689

For more information, contact Maider Epelde, Project Coordinator, Tecnalia Research and Innovation, at maider.epelde@tecnalia.com