Industrial Ecosystems: Energy-intensive industries

Submitted by Veronika Muller on 25 September 2020

Summary of the European Alliance Against Coronavirus Daily Webinar on 22 September 2020

Energy-intensive industries are at the core of European industries and encompass chemistry, steel, plastics, paper, wood, refinery, ceramics and many other sectors. As explained by Titas Anuskevicius, DG GROW, these industries links within themselves and count with a diverse landscape of SMEs by number and size. As they supply intermediate products, they are the diving force for the greening of our society. During the COVID-19 crisis, the ecosystem has been hit hard as their customers from the automotive and construction ecosystem suffered production difficulties.

Patrick Vuillermoz from Plastipolis underlined that circular economy is a big topic for the plastics and polymer industry. As energy consumption is at the core of the ecosystem, digital technologies need to be implemented to optimise the use of energy. The clusters is connecting at regional level to customise the needs of the sector and is working to innovate its value chains and redesign them for circular economy.

Athanasios Konstandopoulos from CERTH presented possible technical solutions for the energy-intensive industries, which included integrated synthesis of solar fuels and chemicals for the refining of the future, replacing fossil fuel extraction with waste valorisation, the upgrade of waste for manufacturing of iron and steel, alternative raw materials to manufacture paper, and solar calciner for the manufacturing of cement. He stated that solar thermochemical technologies are an important enabler for circular economy.

In the discussion, it becomes clear that cross-cluster collaboration is needed to implement the new technologies and link with other ecosystems to meet the goals of the green and digital transition.

A recording of the session is available here.  

These are the presentations shown during the meeting:

ECA Plastipolis Ecosystems_Energy Intensive Industries Sept22 2020 v1 (1).pdf Energy_intensive_ECCP_2020.pdf A-G-Konstandopoulos-ECA-Energy-Intensive-Industries (1).pdf

Find information and recordings of previous meetings on the Role of Clusters in Accelerating the European Recovery (since September 2020) here. For European Alliance Against Coronavirus webinar summaries of March - July 2020, please follow this link.

Finally, please find information on the upcoming agenda here.

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