SUSHEAT draws together a highly proficient, diverse set of skills and expertise in energy, AI, equipment manufacturing and academic institutions. Experienced business and communication partners will facilitate the commercial exploitation of the expected results, including project replication awareness. The complementary partners come from nine European Union countries, including the affiliated countries of Norway and the United Kingdom. SMEs account for a major percentage of the 14 partners strengthening the business case for the results.
UNED (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia) is a renowned Spanish university with one of the largest campuses in Europe. UNED plays a crucial role in acquiring data on industrial heat demand and end-user requirements, as well as conducting Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) to evaluate the environmental impact and sustainability of the project’s pilots.
The Thermal Systems and Renewable Energy (STER) group, which is under the energy engineering department at the Industrial Engineering School, co-ordinates SUSHEAT. With an expertise in thermal systems, Thermo-Economic Analysis (TEA), LCA, and renewable energy, the group brings valuable knowledge and experience to the project.
Analisis-DSC is a Spanish SME engineering services company located in Madrid which provides industrial and mechanical engineering expertise to optimise industrial products or processes using Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) tools. The SME has contributed to the development of 220 projects with more than 160 customers over the past 20 years. The company uses High Performance Workstations, commercial software, and employs skilled, experienced engineers to provide valuable information and service to customers.
Analisis-DSC has been involved in eight European projects within the Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe funding programmes. The company will make use of deep Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) knowledge to develop technical tasks related to product and process modelling to support the Digital Twin development of the SUSHEAT concept. Analisis-DSC will support the project’s social media profiles led by RTDS Group.
Enerin makes ultra high temperature heat pumps for industrial heating, as well as feedwater systems, control and analysis systems for energy flows, and other energy related services. The Enerin team has more than 100 years of combined experience with industrial heat pumps with natural refrigerants.
Enerin’s novel HT-HP systems promise heating and/or cooling capacities of 400-800 kW steam/hot water with temperatures of up to 250°C. The company leads the market for HT-HP co-efficient of performance (COP) above 120°C. Enerin’s Stirling Heat Pump working with helium as the refrigerant will contribute to the SUSHEAT heat upgrade system.
Industrial Solar GmbH provides turnkey and innovative solar thermal solutions to integrate renewable energy into industrial processes to help industries decarbonise. The company’s flagship technology is Fresnel Collectors. The company’s portfolio approach is to provide engineering services, design solar systems for heat, steam, and solar cooling, and conduct energy assessment studies to suggest tailor-made solutions for various industrial sectors, including food and beverage, chemical, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing.
Industrial Solar will contribute its knowledge of energy applications at an industrial scale with expertise in Fresnel collectors, thermal storage systems, and heat pumps. Industrial Solar’s expertise will enable industrial energy independence by providing effective renewable energy solutions that reduce energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.
Sweden’s largest technical university, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, is one of Europe’s top technical universities that has a proven track-record and history of collaborating with industry and research institutions. Within KTH, the Energy Technology Department carries out research in several areas, including industrial heat and power generation, and analysis of energy systems.
The Energy Technology Department has a particular emphasis on energy storage, heat pumps, and on solar energy component development. KTH possesses expertise in techno-economic analysis and component modelling and in utilising in-house techno-economic tools. KTH has established experimental facilities and test rigs, among which are the high flux solar simulator and high-temperature thermal energy storage (TES) system, which allow for the experimentation and evaluation of various high-temperature components.
KTH Royal Institute of Technology is actively engaged in multiple areas on the project, including the conceptualisation, optimisation and laboratory testing of the integrated SUSHEAT system. KTH leads the techno-economic modelling task, ensuring interfacing with dynamic models and LCA tasks. The main ambition is to develop a comprehensive performance assessment of the proposed solution. This includes the experimental validation and critical assessment, as well as the techno-economic replication potential of the system.
LC Innoconsult (Laser Consult Ltd) (LCIN) is an international innovation management consultancy (SME) founded in 1992. The company philosophy is based on co-operation and networking which forms the basis of its successful operation. With extensive experience in providing services as an external service provider for European funding projects, LC Innoconsult’s professionals provide expert science and business knowledge that help unlock the business potential of EU projects.
As the responsible partner for knowledge management, exploitation, and business planning in SUSHEAT, the consultancy will sharpen the ambition of the SUSHEAT project partners to recognise and realise the business opportunities of their results. By collaborating with leading institutions and experts, the consultancy will contribute to SUSHEAT’s advancements by co-developing IPR and business strategies for the adequate exploitation of the key exploitable results generated in the project.
The National Institute of Chemistry (NIC) is a research organisation based in Slovenia, dedicated to basic and applied research oriented towards chemistry and related sciences. More specifically the Institute is focused on advanced materials research, biotechnology, chemical engineering, structural and theoretical chemistry, analytical chemistry and environmental protection.
The NIC role in SUSHEAT is to apply life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies and specialized tools using focus group Interviews, in-depth Interviews, Q methodology of viewpoints (Q-sorts), and scenario analysis to involve the project’s targeted stakeholders. These responses, combined with the sustainability results derived from the methodologies, will define a strategy for the acceptance, engagement and implementation of the target modular SUSHEAT system for stakeholders. Gender dimension will be considered as well.
Newcastle University is a research and teaching-intensive university located in the North East of England. Newcastle is a member of the Russel Group of Top 24 universities in the United Kingdom. SUSHEAT is led by a team from the Process Intensification Group who sit in the Newcastle University School of Engineering. The group contains 15 academics, around 10 post-docs and more than 50 PhD students. The group and has wide-ranging expertise from the optimisation of industrial energy consumption to the design of novel chemical reactor systems.
In SUSHEAT the team will focus on the optimisation of energy supply at the case study sites. Specifically, the core work will examine how to optimise the use of solar thermal, recovered waste heat and upgraded heat (via heat pumps) to minimise running costs, capital costs and emissions while meeting the thermal demand of the process plants.
Pelagia AS is a leading producer of pelagic fish products for human consumption, and an important supplier of essential ingredients in all kinds of fish- and animal feed; protein concentrate; fishmeal; and fish oil. The company is a prime global producer of concentrated marine-based omega-3 fatty acids for dietary supplement and pharmaceutical preparations through its company Epax.
The SUSHEAT technologies will be demonstrated in Pelagia’s fish meal and oil processing plants. The ambition for Pelagia’s involvement in SUSHEAT is to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and the company’s associated costs by optimising profitability through lowering the energy input for processing.
RTDS Association is the Austrian non-profit arm of the RTDS Group supporting implementation and management of European research and innovation projects to optimise the use of results for maximum impact. RTDS has a proven track record in enabling the project innovators to move research and technology from the lab to the market. The Group specializes in the communication, dissemination and exploitation of project results. RTDS addresses heterogenous networks of stakeholders to objectively manage, communicate and exploit the individual and jointly developed know-how, while analysing the broader socio-economic aspects required for the uptake of project results.
In SUSHEAT, RTDS is supporting the project co-ordinator in leading dissemination, exploitation and communication. Specifically, RTDS will carry-out the communication and dissemination activities, responsible for all project content across mediums, including social media where it will be supported by its Spanish partner Analisis DSC. RTDS communication and dissemination efforts are closely-aligned with its Hungarian exploitation partner LC Innoconsult which is responsible for the commercialisation of SUSHEAT results.
i-TES is an innovative company based in Turin, Italy, active in the design and manufacturing of thermal batteries using phase change materials. Its batteries can be directly connected to a variety of heating sources, as well as photovoltaic panels, boosting the efficiency of power-to-heat conversion and overall energy management. The thermal batteries are very compact consuming only a third of the volume of a thermal battery that employs water for storage at the same energy capacity, with adaptability depending on demands rise.
In SUSHEAT i-TES will enhance the applications in industrial areas where the temperature requirements are high (> 120°C) with the objective of reducing the CO2 emissions significantly.
GREiA is a research group specialising in energy and artificial intelligence (AI) research within the University of Lleida (UDL). The main research focus is on energy storage, energy efficiency and AI applications. UDL/GREiA differentiates itself from other energy research organisations because nearly half of the research team are experts in AI. This allows UDL/GREiA to use and create a wider range of methods and tools to address the core innovative engineering applications.
In SUSHEAT, UDL/GREiA works on designing new heat exchangers by using novel AI technologies and a nature-based approach. The main goal is to get a more efficient heat exchanger that’s also easy to manufacture using additive manufacturing technologies. During the project UDL/GREiA will iterate through several designs, refining them in each iteration, just like nature evolves ‘designs’, in a novel approach to heat exchangers design.
WIZ Research (WIZ) is an innovative SME from Romania specialised in complex systems and deep tech with a unique combination of expertise in dynamic data ontologies, artificial intelligence staking and human-centred interfaces. The company’s know-how has been validated through large research and development projects, commercial services and tech-transfer activities.
WIZ will lead the Digital Control Hub, Smart IoT Hardware and Data Analytics on SUSHEAT. For the duration of the project WIZ will play a central role in pushing the innovation boundaries by performing the activities related to artificial intelligence tools, digital twin, data operations and management, digital integrations and the control hub. The company is committed to commercialising the results of its groundbreaking research achieved with partners.
