Long-term decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industrial thermal demand for 100 % renewable energy systems
Lorenzo Mario Pastore,
Daniele Groppi,
Felipe Feijoo,
Alessandro Lentini,
Gianluigi Lo Basso,
Davide Astiaso Garcia and
Livio de Santoli
Energy, 2025, vol. 327, issue C
Abstract:
Decarbonising the hard-to-abate sectors, such as industry, is a complex challenge towards carbon-neutral energy systems. Solutions and technologies for industry decarbonisation must be embedded into an energy model while optimising the transition pathways of the whole energy system to fully grasp the complex synergies between all sectors. This study proposes an enhanced modelling approach based on the H2RES long-term optimisation tool to include industrial heating technologies as endogenous variables, disaggregated by three temperature levels, and applies it to the decarbonisation of Italian industry. Results show that the temperature level of industrial heat demand is a crucial discriminating factor. Heat pumps can directly electrify the low-temperature demand, while biofuels are the most cost-effective solution for medium- and high-temperature demand. Biomass limited availability strongly affects the optimisation results. Indirect electrification plays a key role, since electrofuels cover a share up to 55 % of heat demand, resulting in lower system costs than direct hydrogen combustion. The outcomes show how the best strategies to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors cannot be identified separately from the entire energy system and without considering temperature constraints and overall resource availability. It is crucial to rely on modelling tools able to describe such issue and interconnections within all energy sectors.
Keywords: Energy planning; Smart energy systems; Industry decarbonisation; Synthetic natural gas; Biomethane; Alternative fuels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225020262
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.
Export reference: BibTeX
RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan)
HTML/Text
Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:327:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225020262
DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.136384
Access Statistics for this article
Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser
More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().