Research

Energy and CO2 savings through CCUS (Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage) and resource and energy efficiency through industrial symbiosis are two essential approaches to decarbonizing industry. At the level of the IEA TCP (Technology Collaboration Programme) "Industrial Energy Technologies and Systems," Task 21 was therefore established at the initiative of the Climate and Energy Fund, operationally executed by the Energy Institute at JKU Linz, and has since been led over two periods. Key Austrian responsibilities in the newly announced third period, which includes two subtasks (#4 Carbon Dioxide Capture in Industry and #5 Facilitation of Industrial Symbiosis), are the leadership of the entire Task 21, the leadership of Subtask 4, as well as substantive contributions to both subtasks. Additionally, dissemination and communication requirements include sharing Austrian findings internationally and bringing international knowledge to Austria. The subtasks focus on CO2 management, legal frameworks for CCUS, new value chains and associated stakeholders, technological integration in industry, tools to enable industrial symbiosis, and a non-technical assessment of the status of cooperation. The international work is accompanied by a comprehensive national communication and dissemination strategy, ensuring stakeholder engagement and bidirectional knowledge transfer.

The continuous anthropogenic emission of greenhouse gases is further driving human-induced climate change. There is a general consensus among industry, politics, and science that the further rise in temperature must be limited. The IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) report states that in order to meet the 1.5-degree target of the Paris Agreement, in addition to transforming the energy system and continuously reducing CO2 emissions, negative CO2 emissions will also be necessary. In this context, BECCUS (Bioenergy Carbon Capture and Utilization/Storage) is expected to be a key technology to achieve net-zero CO2 emissions in the coming decades. Particular potential is attributed to the Temperature Swing Adsorption (TSA) technology, which can significantly reduce energy demand compared to state-of-the-art technologies. A suitable initial implementation sector is the food industry, where there is high energy demand, but CO2 can also be directly utilized in processes. The captured CO2 can thus be considered not only as an emission and an undesirable byproduct of thermal conversion processes but also as a product within a value chain, even without CO2 storage. To this end, an existing laboratory prototype is to be adapted in an exploratory project and installed at a real production site in the food industry, with the aim of testing and verifying acceptance and robustness in a "real-world laboratory." This will lay the foundation for further development of the technology in terms of scaling up and simplifying the technology. On the topic of acceptance and robustness, stakeholder workshops with industry representatives will be conducted, ideally including representatives of alternative solution concepts. Another part of the exploratory project concerns the possibilities of later offering the technology or technology package on the market. The current idea is to deliver the necessary plant technology for CO2 capture and supply as a complete system, including operation, and to allocate the total costs to the amount of CO2 provided.

In order for Austria to achieve its climate targets, a massive reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is necessary. This can only be achieved by increasing the share of renewable energy and improving the efficiency of energy supply for electricity and heat. In a sustainable energy system, it therefore makes sense to take a holistic view of all players (producers, consumers, storage facilities, etc.), including balancing the respective load and generation profiles. In the FlexHP research project, this approach is being pursued in order to optimize load shifting on the electricity grid side and increase the proportion of renewable electricity. To this end, buildings are integrated into a dynamic energy management system as thermal storage units and heat pumps as highly efficient heat generators in addition to the known players (battery storage, electric car, photovoltaic system) and the load consumption for the grid is optimized using an AI-supported control algorithm. This is intended to create an additional flexibility provider for the electricity grid in times of surplus electricity. The aim of the dynamic energy management system is to optimize load shifting at building level through the interaction of forecast models and optimized control of individual consumers.This requires modeling of all players involved in the electricity grid in order to be able to predict their behavior.Using forecast models that have been tested and validated with historical data, an algorithm is being developed that enables optimized interaction between the individual players with a load balancing target function. The individual models and the function of the control algorithm are tested in a living lab with real system components.Power grid parameters from the low and medium voltage level are used as the primary control variable.The applicability of the system is to be tested on a laboratory scale with system components available on the market.