A collaboration between Danish, Dutch, German and Spanish partners in the CHASE project will make high-temperature heat pumps a viable green alternative to gas in industry. By developing both the high-temperature heat pumps themselves and the heat storage method, the project partners hope to make the electricity-based technology both cheaper and more efficient than the fossil alternative. Innovation Fund Denmark is investing 3 million DKK in the project's Danish partners.
Today, gas is used as a central energy source throughout industry. The fossil fuel is a constant burden on the climate, and it is therefore important to find alternative energy sources that can be rolled out on a large industrial scale. The challenge, however, is that the green alternatives must be able to compete with natural gas on price and at the same time be able to achieve the same high temperatures as when burning gas.
An international project collaboration has been launched to solve this challenge. The project, called CHASE, will combine high-temperature heat pumps with a newly developed heat storage method. CHASE includes the Danish Technological Institute and Novo Nordisk, as well as a number of research institutions and companies from Germany, the Netherlands and Spain. For the collaboration partners, heat technology solutions are absolutely crucial when it comes to creating a more sustainable future:
- We usually say "heat is half" because half of the world's energy consumption goes to heat. Innovations within heating solutions can therefore help with approximately half of the green transition, is the assessment of Morten Herget Christensen.
He is currently the section leader for Cooling and Heat Pump Technology at the Danish Technological Institute and serves as the institute's project manager at CHASE. According to him, efficient heat storage is an important part of reducing operating costs for heat pumps in industry.
- Electricity prices vary depending on weather conditions and time of day, so by producing heat when electricity is cheapest and then storing it, you can reduce operating costs considerably. This also gives companies a completely different flexibility, because they can produce heat when electricity is cheap and use it when needed.
In addition to costs, heat pump technology has so far been challenged by the fact that it cannot achieve temperatures as high as gas combustion, and that its application possibilities in industry have therefore been limited. But the team behind CHASE wants to solve this problem as well.
- High-temperature heat pumps have until now rarely been able to reach more than 120-140 degrees. In the project, we have heat pumps that deliver up to 250 degrees. This means that we can promote high-temperature heat pumps to a much larger market than before, says Morten Herget Christensen.
Every country has its specialty
CHASE was created as a result of a call under the EU Clean Energy Transition Partnership initiative. The initiative aims to bring together private and public stakeholders and facilitate collaboration across countries to create a less fragmented innovation field within green energy.
The CHASE project thus consists of a consortium of Danish, Dutch, Spanish and German partners, covering public and private stakeholders from the research world and industry. The Innovation Fund Denmark's funding goes to the Danish Technological Institute and Novo Nordisk. For Morten Herget Christensen, working internationally has been very rewarding.
- Each partner has their own specialty and things they are world champions in. For that reason alone, there is a lot of value in collaborating internationally. But in addition, there are also big differences in electricity markets and framework conditions across Europe. That is why it makes sense to develop and test the project's solutions across countries, says Morten Herget Christensen, who describes the consortium as "a professionally competent and close-knit group".
Facts
- Innovation Fund's investment: DKK 3,074,000.00.
- Total Budget: DKK 33,561,082.32 – In addition to Innovation Fund Denmark, the German state fund Projektträger Jülich contributes DKK 11 million, the Dutch state fund Netherlands Enterprise Agency DKK 15 million and the Spanish state fund Agencia Estatal de Investigación DKK 3 million.
- Duration: 2024 - 2027
- Program: International Collaborations – CETP (Clean Energy Transition Partnership)
- Official title: CHASE – Combined Heat pump and thermal Storage for Energy efficient industry
About the partners
Denmark is represented in CHASE by the Danish Technological Institute and Novo Nordisk. In addition, the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO), the Polytechnic University of Valencia and the Dutch companies Standard Fasel and Trespa also participate.
