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Zero Emissions Industrial Technologies (ZEnITh)

Objective

Industry accounts for around 15% of the EU’s total emissions, with Energy-Intensive Industries (EIIs) representing more than half of the industrial energy consumption. These sectors – including aluminium, steel, cement, lime, chemicals, etc. – rely heavily on thermal energy, with 66% of industrial energy use dedicated to process heating, 37% of which requires temperatures below 200 °C. Ensuring a sustainable supply of heat is therefore central to any decarbonization strategy. However, several challenges persist: variability of industrial processes and difficulties in integration for retrofit solutions; need of ad hoc design of generation technologies and difficulty in replicability; imbalance between sustainable energy supply and availability, and energy demands; economic feasibility and competitiveness with traditional technologies and political barriers; lack of awareness and skepticism among final users and value chain stakeholders (e.g. engineering companies/installers, etc.); lack of ommon language among the actors and real co-creation activities. The ZEnITh (Zero Emissions Industrial Technologies) project addresses these challenges with an integrated plug-and-play solution combining High Temperature Heat Pumps, Latent Thermal Energy Storages and AI-based Industrial Energy Management System, to enable efficient, flexible, and replicable decarbonization of industrial thermal processes. By actively involving manufacturers of EU Net Zero Technologies (NZTs) and all stakeholders from early stages, ZEnITh aims to build a resilient and profitable market for NZTs. Besides, the system supports integration with renewable energy sources such as PV panels and battery storage, as well as emerging technologies like mechanical vapour recompression. The proposed solution will be validated by testing in a real-world EII process in an aluminium manufacturing plant. In doing so, ZEnITh paves the way for a sustainable, competitive, and scalable pathway to reduce emission EEIs.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

Keywords

Programme(s)

Topic(s)

Funding Scheme

HORIZON-IA - HORIZON Innovation Actions

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Call for proposal

(opens in new window) HORIZON-CL4-2025-01

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Coordinator

CLIVET SPA
Net EU contribution
€ 1 451 975,00
Address
VIA CAMP LONC 25 FRAZIONE VILLAPAI ERA
32032 Feltre
Italy
Region
Nord-Est Veneto Belluno
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost
€ 2 074 250,00

Participants (16)