The project aims to decarbonise industrial heating and cooling through heat pumps and by offering replicable models for low and medium temperature processes in three different sectors:
HP4INDUSTRY aims to achieve 4 main objectives:
The project fosters strong collaboration between industrial sectors and heat pump technology providers.
By engaging EU industry associations within the consortium and advisory board, it creates a structured dialogue across stakeholders.
Dedicated working groups and mirror groups will be established to co-develop standardised solutions and tools applicable across entire industrial sectors.
Focusing on key industrial sectors, the project will design, test, and validate replicable solutions for integrating heat pumps into industrial processes.
This includes advanced process designs, feasibility assessment frameworks, and business models that evaluate financing mechanisms and investment opportunities.
The project supports the transition to low-carbon industry by enabling collaboration between industrial sectors, technology providers, and stakeholders in renewable heating and thermal storage.
The solutions developed will serve as scalable models, facilitating replication across other industries with similar energy profiles.
Through targeted dissemination, the project promotes innovative and efficient heating and cooling solutions to a wide audience, including industry, policymakers, financial actors, and civil society.
It provides a comprehensive analysis of industrial energy demand and supply, showcases best practices and business models, and highlights the role of electrification—particularly large-scale heat pumps—in decarbonising industrial processes.
The project follows a structured three-phase methodology designed to accelerate the adoption of industrial heat pumps across multiple sectors. Each phase builds on the previous one, combining technical analysis, stakeholder collaboration, and practical validation to deliver scalable and replicable solutions.
This first phase focuses on building a comprehensive understanding of industrial energy use across selected sectors. Activities include:
To ensure accuracy and relevance, this phase is supported by strong collaboration with industrial stakeholders, such as pulp & paper, chemicals, and food & drink, as well as expert networks and associations. The outcome is a robust dataset and a set of representative virtual industrial cases reflecting real-world conditions.
In the second phase, the project translates insights from data analysis into practical, standardised industrial heat pump solutions. This stage will encompass:
A key objective of this phase is to move away from costly, tailor-made systems towards standardised, modular solutions that increase ease of deployment, reduce capital and operational costs and improve scalability across sectors.
The final phase ensures that project results achieve maximum impact beyond the initial sectors. Activities include:
By leveraging established European networks and sector associations, the project ensures that solutions are not only technically sound but also widely adopted and commercially viable.
HP4INDUSTRY will accelerate industrial heat pump adoption, boost energy efficiency, and drive sustainable growth, delivering tangible results across installations, skills, business models, solutions, energy savings, policy, and innovation. More specifically the project will have an impact in the following areas:
New installations: 15 industrial heat pumps will be installed during the project, with growth reaching up to 215 per year within five years, boosting adoption across industrial sectors.
Skills & knowledge: 500 companies will gain hands-on training through capacity-building activities, and 1,000 companies are expected to benefit from project results after it ends.
Business models: 100 companies will put new industrial heat pump business models into practice during the project, expanding to 500 in the following years.
Standardised solutions: 100 companies will implement technical standardised solutions during the project, with 500 adopting them post-project.
Natural gas savings: the project will save 14 M m³/year of natural gas initially, growing to 200 M m³/year within five years.
Policy support: 5 policy acts will be improved during the project, paving the way for 27 fully implemented acts in the longer term.