A bottom-up estimation of heating and cooling demand in the European industry

Energy balances, e.g. the one provided by Eurostat, are usually aggregated at the level of subsector and energy carrier. In the context of transformation of energy systems and policies targeting energy efficiency as well as security of supply, more detailed information about the end-uses of energy is needed. While heating and cooling makes up for half the energy demand of the EU28 plus Norway, Switzerland, Iceland (EU28+3), balances aligned to Eurostat for the industrial sector, including process heat temperature level and end-use, are not available today. Here we present a methodology to disaggregate Eurostat's energy balance for the industrial sector and add these dimensions. Results show that though a stable overall pattern can be observed, considerable differences among countries in terms of temperature distribution, energy carrier use and their cross-references exist. These differences are mainly caused by heterogeneous economic structures of the countries in scope, highlighting that approaches on process level yield more differentiated results, which subsector level approaches cannot. We calculate the EU28+3 industrial process heating demand to 1,035 TWh, 706 TWh and 228 TWh at the respective temperature levels >500 °C (e.g. iron and steel production), 100-500 °C (e.g. steam use in chemical industry)and 100 °C (e.g. food industry). We expect the results presented here to contribute to policy design regarding energy efficiency and security of supply, by providing a deeper insight in the requirements and particularities of industrial heat demand.