SUSHEAT introduces a rational concept to harvest energy from renewable sources, waste heat, and/or ambient heat, while developing the key components for a new generation of highly efficient industrial heat upgrade systems at the same time. This is to explore alternative industrial energy solutions to replace fossil fuels in manufacturing processes.
Three innovative enabling technologies will be developed and validated:
- An advanced High-Temperature Heat Pump (HT-HP);
- A Phase Change Material (PCM) bio-inspired Thermal Energy Storage (TES) system;
- A Control & Integration Twin (CIT) system.
By using a high-temperature Stirling heat pump operating with helium, SUSHEAT will be able to efficiently upgrade heat up to 150–250°C, significantly expanding the industrial applicability of waste heat upgrade systems.
Opportunities will be created to combine technologies such as heat pumps and thermal storage with a boosted integration of thermal heat derived from Renewable Energy Sources (RES) to address one of the big industrial energy challenges which is the RES intermittent availability. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) systems, specifically the Fresnel solar collector modules will be considered as part of the SUSHEAT system.
The integration of innovative bio-inspired energy storage solutions will ensure a reliable, flexible, and customisable heat delivery with a full decoupling from any waste heat recovery and renewables availability.
New and existing AI-assisted systems will be explored for optimal heat harvesting, conversion and upgrade, and storage. SUSHEAT will offer user-friendly and visually attractive tools, digital twins, sophisticated decision-making algorithms to offer advice about the best-suited solutions to industrial stakeholders, and control system tools.
Heat upgrade technologies are becoming increasingly relevant as one of the ways to meet the high thermal energy demand required by industry.
SUSHEAT aims to develop and validate (via modelling and laboratory activities) innovative technological solutions that can untap the potential of hybrid renewable industrial heat upgrade systems to be fed into industrial processes on demand. This will contribute to a deep decarbonisation of the industrial sector which is currently powered by fossil fuels.
Decarbonisation of industry requires a new approach to the design of every link of the renewable energy supply chain that can be applied across different industrial sectors. Solutions for intensive factory processing needs, currently fired by fossil fuels, must be found.
