This paper draws upon an extensive transdisciplinary scenario development in the context of the stakeholder oriented preparation of the climate protection plan of the German federal state North Rhine-Westphalia, which is home to the most important heavy industry cluster in Europe. In that context we developed differentiated bottom up climate change mitigation strategies and scenarios for the major energy intensive industries aluminium, iron and steel, cement, lime, paper and steam cracker for olefin production together with representatives of industry as well as society.
Energy intensive industries are one of the fields in which strong increases of energy efficiency and deep decarbonisation strategies are particularly challenging. Although European energy intensive industries have already achieved significant energy and greenhouse gas reductions in the past, much remains to be done to make a significant contribution to achieving European as well as national climate mitigation targets of greenhouse gas emission reductions by -80% or more (compared to the baseline of 1990). North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is a European hotspot for coping with this challenge, accommodating more than 10% of the energy intensive industries of the EU28. It is also the first German state to have adopted its own Climate Law, enacting state-wide CO2 emission reductions by 80% until 2050 compared to 1990. The state government initiated the project "Platform Climate Protection and Industry North-Rhine Westphalia" to identify and develop the necessary far-reaching low carbon innovation strategies for energy intensive industries. Heart of the project was a dialogue process, which involved a broad spectrum of stakeholders from steel, chemical, aluminium, cement, glass and paper producing industries. Besides enhancing and broadening the knowledge on high efficiency and low-carbon technologies within industries, the aim was to explore possible pathways and preconditions for the application of these technologies in energy intensive industries as well as to strengthen the motivation of companies for initiatives and investments in technologies with lower CO2 emissions. The results of the dialogue shall provide a basis for a possible low-carbon industry roadmap NRW and may also serve as an example for other industrialized regions in the EU and globally. The paper sketches the structured dialogue process with the stakeholders from companies as well as industrial associations and presents the learnings regarding the engagement of energy intensive industries into ambitious climate policies on a regional level. These include existing limitations as well as chances in the respective sectors on the state level, regarding their economic and technical structures as well as their innovation systems. The findings are based on more than a dozen stakeholder workshops with industry companies and more than 150 individual representatives of NRW's energy intensive industries as well as on background research in the initial phase of the project.
Nach einer langen Phase der Stabilität ist die Stromwirtschaft in den vergangenen 15 Jahren stark in Bewegung geraten. Zunächst stand der Wechsel von staatlich überwachten und regulierten Gebietsmonopolen hin zu liberalisierten Erzeuger- und Verbrauchermärkten an. Im Moment befinden wir uns in einem ähnlichen Umbruch, weg von konventioneller hin zu erneuerbarer Energieerzeugung.
Im vorliegenden Beitrag soll der Leitfrage nachgegangen werden, ob die Paradigmen der einzelnen Phasen miteinander vereinbar sind, welche noch immer ihre Daseinsberechtigung haben und welche modifiziert werden sollten.
Energy labelling for household appliances has become an established instrument to promote energy efficiency. For heating systems, however, this approach has not been successfully implemented yet. This is partially due to the reluctance of industry.
To find ways to motivate industry to participate in a labelling scheme, we carried out a survey among producers of heating systems. Respondents to our questionnaire and personal interviews cover together more than 30 percent of the EU market for heating systems. Thus the results provide a solid basis for conclusions.
Our survey helps to draw a much better picture of the attitudes and expectations of the manufacturers with regard to a labelling scheme. The paper covers:
Attitudes regarding potential effects of a label; Opinions on possible design of a label; Perceived effects of the labels for the companies; Perceived advantages and disadvantages of a label; And, as a conclusion, the potential effects on the companies and their probable relevance.
As a result, industry representatives expect that customers will be able to make sounder purchasing decisions because of the availability of a label. Therefore they believe that energy savings will be achieved. What is more, respondents expect that a label could improve integration of the European market for heating systems and would rather improve their individual economic performance.
The survey results in a clearer identification of industry's problems, needs and interests. It thus will help policy-makers to get industry to support energy efficiency labels and activities.
The EU aims to become the first climate neutral continent. To achieve this goal, the industry sector needs to reduce its GHG emissions to net zero or at least close to net zero. This is a particularly challenging task due to the high energy demand especially of primary materials production and the little potential to reduce this energy intensity when switching to other production processes based on electricity or hydrogen. In order to identify robust strategies for achieving a net-zero-compatible industry sector, the paper at hand analyses the transformation of the industry sector as described by a number of recent climate neutrality scenarios for Germany. Apart from overall industry, a focus is set on the sectors of steel, chemicals and cement. The analysed scenarios show very deep GHG emission reductions in industry and they appear to be techno-economically feasible by the mid of the century, without relying on offsets or on shifts from domestic production to imports. The scenarios agree on a suite of core strategies to achieve this, such as direct and indirect electrification, energy efficiency and recycling as well as new technological routes in steel making and cement. The scenarios differ, however, regarding the future mix of electricity, hydrogen and biomass and regarding the future relevance of domestic production of basic chemicals.