Energy transition of the industry is a complex matter. The industry is one of the largest CO2 emitters and this is closely connected with their core processes. A transition can be made in many different ways – capturing and storage of CO2, shift from gas to hydrogen, or apply renewable electricity. All these changes are carving very deep into the assets – it’s sometimes seen as an open-heart surgery operation.

At the same time there are strong dependencies to external factors – the availability of infrastructure for gas, power and CO2, the availability of sufficient renewable power, legal framework to increase costs of emissions and support transition. In our work at ISPT we aim to capture these aspects in integral system models that help to identify robust solutions and enhance insights to support the decision making in this complex setting.

In my presentation I will go into the background and complexity of industrial energy transition and show how quantitative modeling techniques can be used to support the decision making processes in the energy transition.

Andreas’ slides can be found here.

Andreas ten Cate is Program Director System Integration at the Institute for Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT). ISPT builds strong consortia of academia, start-ups, innovative SME’s and large industry corporates to develop new technologies and knowledge for a sustainable process industry. The System Integration Program focuses on how the industry can rely on renewable energy from wind and solar to drive an industry with zero carbon footprint and circular use of feedstocks. This is done, for example, by developing the technologies needed for production of green hydrogen at the industrial scale. We even reach beyond the scale of industrial factories by exploring the development of the hydrogen supply chain. It is this last example that will be used as a basis of my presentation. Andreas holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering and has a background in both academia and the industry.