Key technologies to drive Europe's industrial decarbonisation

Hália Oliveira, Global B2B Product and Operations Lead at EDP, shares which technologies hold the greatest promise for European industrial decarbonisation.

Industrial decarbonisation is key to achieving energy transition targets and some technologies hold more promise than others to help achieve net zero targets.

Speaking during Enlit Europe, Oliveira emphasised the importance of technologies that she said are "ready to roll" such as efficiency in materials and heat pumps, and transition technologies such as carbon capture.

Oliveira also said: "Thermal storage is a very important technology for producing heat above 150 degrees and we already see thermal storage entering the market."

However, while we have technologies at our disposal now, "35% of technologies needed to achieve the 2050 targets are not invented yet," said Oliveira. "We need to lead with the unknown."

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Technology adoption for industrial decarbonisation

Oliveira stressed that while we must focus on developing the new technologies needed for net zero, a successful energy transition also depends on boosting the level of adoption.

To ensure greater adoption, she highlights the need to address three key challenges:

• Technology challenge - Developing key technologies faster to ensure they are available.
• Adoption challenge - Many are afraid to adopt it or change business processes and operations to accommodate new technologies.
• Policy challenge - It's important to incentivise innovation adoption.

Oliveira believes that if we don't address these challenges, less green technology adoption could negatively impact European competitiveness, a hot topic of discussion at Enlit Europe this year.

According to Oliveira, more than 85% of consumers demand industries and products to take into account green concerns.

Industries using greener processes will attract consumers and being more efficient will allow industries to "spend less to produce the same" - ultimately boosting competitiveness, concludes Oliveira.

Listen to the full interview with Hália Oliveira from EDP for more insights into the importance of industrial decarbonisation and the technologies that will achieve net zero.