Improving Energy Efficiency in Energy Intensive Industries. Call for stakeholders interested in the Irish market.
According to the European Commission (2019 data), industry accounts for 25,6% of the EU final energy consumption and 15% of its emissions. Half of the energy demanded by industry is consumed by industries where energy costs are a high proportion of their production costs, which are named Energy Intensive Industries (EII).
At European level, more than 30,000 companies and 2.8 million employees across different industry sectors are represented by the European Alliance of Energy Intensive Industries. Energy intensive industry sectors include cement, paper industry, chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, healthcare industry, metals, ferro-alloy producers, iron and steel industries, ceramic industry, gypsum, clay and lime industries, glass industries, petroleum industry.
Although technical and regulatory knowledge and several support tools for the implementation of energy efficiency measures and/or renewable energy generation are available to industry stakeholders, energy intensive industries require a specialized approach and the development of a practical know-how to improve their existing processes for energy auditing and deployment of energy efficiency measures.
The Audit Plus project (Enhancing energy audit schemes in Energy Intensive Industries with practical approaches), funded under European LIFE-CET-22 call and coordinated by the IERC, started its activities with the kick off meeting held at the innovation centre iLab in Madrid on October 18th 2023. The project will enhance energy audit schemes in energy intensive industries with practical approaches, providing technical, financial, regulatory and training support to these industries. The project will act as a one stop shop that will offer an integral energy efficiency consultancy service to 82 energy intensive industries of the pharmaceutical, chemical and healthcare sectors in Ireland, ceramic sector in Castellon (Spain), fishing and food processing sectors in Galicia (Spain), food processing sector in Poland. The integral service offered by LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS will include the following features: 1. technology assessment, 2. cost-benefit analysis, 3. engineering support, 4. identification of public and private sources for financing, 5. matchmaking between energy intensive industries and technology/service providers, 6. guidance for implementing recommended energy efficiency measures after energy audits plans, 7. consultancy to develop a corporate energy strategy. Moreover, LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS will develop a knowledge hub for energy efficiency in energy intensive industries, that will be made publicly accessible via the world wide web. The knowledge hub webpages will be available in English, Spanish and Polish, and will group together successful stories, tools for calculating energy savings and return of investment, recommendations for overcoming financial barriers, an energy audits good practice handbook, datasets including energy efficiency key performance indicators, training material and webinars, energy efficiency statistics and information about sectoral associations.
LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS wishes to get in contact with associations, policymakers, technologists, private companies, energy intensive industries, public authorities, agencies, research entities, normalization bodies, to discuss with them how energy auditing processes are currently organized in energy intensive industries, opportunities to innovate the current best practices, ideas for new standards and financial schemes, which can increase the investments in energy efficiency measures identified in energy audit processes, and the efforts spent in their implementation.
The IERC wishes to open a discussion forum with the stakeholders in Ireland to identify the barriers and drivers to the implementation of more effective energy audits that will be followed by the deployment of more energy efficiency measures in energy intensive industries, especially of the pharmaceutical, chemical and healthcare sectors (but also other sectors will be considered). The objective is to form an operational group of stakeholders based in Ireland, that will attend a number of project’s workshops, where the different features of the LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS integral consultancy service will be analyzed and the details about their practical implementation will be determined. The results of such activity will be transferred to the service implementation stage. Moreover there will be an opportunity for the stakeholders that wish to support energy intensive industries in the implementation of energy efficiency measures to get involved with the EII which will be enrolled by LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS through the matchmaking activities that will be part of the integral consultancy service offered by LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS.
If you want to know more about LIFE-AUDIT-PLUS please get in contact with: