A collaboration between the paper industry & heat pump producers could halve its energy needs & help decarbonise the sector

Already today, heat pumps are enabling energy savings for many industries. They provide about 10% of final industrial energy demand in Europe, and help to lower industrial emissions across many sectors. A recent development is that commercially available large heat pumps and steam compressors can now heat up to 200°C, meeting the pulp and paper industry’s needs. The innovation has been encouraged by exchanges between both industries at European level.

A joint working group between members of the European paper and heat pump industries calculated potential energy savings in paper drying of more than 50%, and a joint Cepi-EHPA paper detailing how heat pumps could be integrated into paper mills has now been published.

The partnership between EHPA and Cepi tells the story of how collaboration can result in innovation breakthroughs, with real decarbonisation impacts. This is the purpose of Cepi’s Energy Efficiency Solutions Forum (EESF), hosting the joint working group, where front-running companies can exchange and learn from each other’s efforts to implement cutting edge technologies. The format of the EESF is frequently hailed as a model for other industries’ collaborative decarbonisation efforts.

Whether or not heat pumps can be rapidly deployed in paper mills across Europe now depends on the regulatory incentives that national government and EU Institutions can provide for electrifying the sector, which will require large amounts of affordable clean energy to meet the challenges set in the recently announced EU Green Deal Industry Plan.