Periodic Reporting for period 1 - INCUBIS (An Industrial Symbiosis Incubator for Maximizing Waste Heat/Cold Efficiency in Industrial Parks and Districts)
Reporting period: 2020-05-01 to 2021-10-31
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 and 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 but 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. As such, Industrial symbiosis (the business strategy involving commercial transactions of underutilized materials, energy and services between two or more production sites) has been identified as key area with promising potential to valorize energy losses streams and better manage energy globally. Although some examples of industrial symbiosis with energy resources (from now on referred as Energy Symbiosis or ES) have gained attention around Europe, and despite its increased uptake in both policy and industry, Energy Symbiosis is still a fringe phenomenon.
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. This objective is further elaborated to the following specific objectives: (i) Define an operational framework that will address the gaps in the energy symbiosis ecosystem, (ii) Establish the necessary tools and services for lifting barriers and supporting the delivery of energy symbiosis, (iii) Develop the Cloud Platform that will enable the provision of energy symbiosis support services under the “Virtual Incubator” delivery model, (iv) Deliver impact by rolling out the energy symbiosis incubator to the project’s regions and supporting realization of energy synergies across Europe, (v) Capacity-building and training for energy symbiosis at individual, organizational, and institutional level, (vi) Verify the environmental, economic and social impacts of INCUBIS project, (vii) Develop a sustainable business model for the Energy Symbiosis Incubator and a business plan for its post-project commercialization, (viii) Maximize the impacts of the project through effective communication and dissemination and by establishing synergies with projects and initiatives across 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. As such, Industrial symbiosis (the business strategy involving commercial transactions of underutilized materials, energy and services between two or more production sites) has been identified as key area with promising potential to valorize energy losses streams and better manage energy globally. Although some examples of industrial symbiosis with energy resources (from now on referred as Energy Symbiosis or ES) have gained attention around Europe, and despite its increased uptake in both policy and industry, Energy Symbiosis is still a fringe phenomenon.
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. This objective is further elaborated to the following specific objectives: (i) Define an operational framework that will address the gaps in the energy symbiosis ecosystem, (ii) Establish the necessary tools and services for lifting barriers and supporting the delivery of energy symbiosis, (iii) Develop the Cloud Platform that will enable the provision of energy symbiosis support services under the “Virtual Incubator” delivery model, (iv) Deliver impact by rolling out the energy symbiosis incubator to the project’s regions and supporting realization of energy synergies across Europe, (v) Capacity-building and training for energy symbiosis at individual, organizational, and institutional level, (vi) Verify the environmental, economic and social impacts of INCUBIS project, (vii) Develop a sustainable business model for the Energy Symbiosis Incubator and a business plan for its post-project commercialization, (viii) Maximize the impacts of the project through effective communication and dissemination and by establishing synergies with projects and initiatives across Europe
In order to define an operational framework that will address the gaps in the energy symbiosis ecosystem, we established a framework for the energy symbiosis incubator, which is adapted to the needs of regional energy symbiosis ecosystems. To establish the necessary tools, this has been addressed principally through activities carried out in WP2, which involved the development of the tools, methods and services to support Energy Symbiosis Facilitators with project ideation and development. The majority of these resources have now been completed by the partners and are in the process of being integrated into the Virtual Incubator Platform modules (WP3) and used by facilitators in the Regional Incubators (WP4). For the development of the Virtual Platform, we integrated the ICT tools and modules supporting and enabling the provision of INCUBIS services. Regarding the complete development of the internal training program, the regional leaders opted to wait to collect the first feedback from the first round of services offered. In some regions, the provision of at least two services/tools for some projects is being applied and will be available in the second period. In general, the objective of imprinting operability to the incubator network has been achieved. To date, in at least four of the five European regions where the project is taking place, the incubators have begun to offer their first services to develop energy symbiosis projects in the area. Regional leaders have expanded the original stakeholder pool. The consortium has created expert committees composed of regional energy entities, four expert committees with a total of 32 members have been set up, from private companies, institutional bodies, regulatory authorities.The regional leaders have redefined and selected the energy symbiosis projects to be supported based on success and impact criteria. Based on the case studies, the members decided to incubate, evaluate opportunities and estimate their impact potential. In the first operational phase, the regional incubators will support ten projects: 3 in Spain, 1 in France, 1 in the UK, 4 in Norway. In parallel, the project has progressed in terms of exploitation, presenting the Interim Plan for the Exploitation of Results and Business Development.
Five (5) local Energy Symbiosis Incubators (ESIs) will be launched, covering wider industrial areas (Barcelona, Dunkirk, South Norway, Humber, ChemCoast) and supporting existing or novel symbiotic networks. The ESIs will consist of both physical and virtual spaces, manned by the INCUBIS consortium partners who have been selected specifically for their complementary expertise and experience in delivering Energy Symbiosis. The ESI will deliver a range of tools, methods, and services to key stakeholders of existing or new energy symbiosis initiatives aiming to (a) support them in the identification and delivery of energy synergies and (b) train them and build capacity at all levels to achieve sustainable growth of energy symbiosis uptake. The virtual space will consist of an online Energy Symbiosis platform that will integrate matchmaking functionalities, ranking tools, feasibility tools, best practices, guidelines, training materials, etc. and will essentially function as a toolbox for delivering the Incubator ́s services (both remotely and locally). The physical structures will be spaces located at the HQs and offices of consortium partners located strategically at each of the project's target areas and that will function as both meeting point and operation centre for the local activities of the Incubator. LAter in the project, Incubator services and tools will be delivered at a European scale by capitalizing on the Virtual Incubator capabilities and targeted interventions in policies, standards, procedures and guidelines. Based on these activities it is estimated that 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 symbiosis.