Second European Process Industry Conference 23 and 24 October 2024 Debrief

On 23 and 24 October 2024, the Second Process Industry Conference was organised in Brussels by A.SPIRE. The conference was a dynamic event, highlighting how A.SPIRE’s ten European energy-intensive industry sectors are enabling the green and digital transition, innovation, industrial decarbonisation, increased global competitiveness and more.

Under the slogan "Shaping the Transformation", the event marked the mid-term of the P4Planet Partnership and of the Horizon Europe R&I Programme and was an opportune moment to review progress and highlight issues and opportunities to shape the green and digital transition of European industry. Presentations from across the P4Planet project portfolio demonstrated that the partnerships’ cross-sectorial, cross-disciplinary and pan-European collaborations are yielding innovations that have the potential to significantly reduce industrial emissions, increase resource and energy efficiency, and establish a more circular economy. The event demonstrated that synergy and collaboration are significant strengths of the P4Planet Partnership.

23 October 2024 – Stakeholder’s Event

Opening Session: “If not us, who? If not now, when?”

The event was opened by the moderator for the day, Katrina Sichel, who welcomed everyone and outlined the agenda. She emphasised the importance of the event with the upcoming publication of the next European Commission’s new Clean Industrial Deal. Katrina invited Angels Orduña, A.SPIRE’s executive director, to the stage, who emphasised that the primary aim of the P4Planet Partnership is “to boost competitiveness in this continent”. She highlighted that analysis of the P4Planet project portfolio covering 2021-2023 already showed the potential to reduce CO₂ emissions by 80-90%. Angels stressed the importance of wide collaborative innovation networks, such as P4Planet, in building Europe’s sustainable future and making the EU industry globally competitive. “If not us, who? If not now, when?” she asked.

Empowering the Green Transition

The first plenary session, Empowering the Green Transition, brought on stage Maria Cristina Russo, Director of Prosperity at the European Commission DG Research & Innovation and Pierre Joris, President of A.SPIRE.

Pierre Joris foresaw a big innovation challenge, but implementation depended on a sound business case for investment with any interim cost disadvantages compensated in some way.

Maria Cristina Russo stated that research and innovation would be at the core of the new Commission’s agenda and that the new Clean Industry Deal should be seen as a continuation of the current Green Deal but more industry-friendly. There was a clear need to act urgently and together.

For Pierre achieving the Green Transition essentially meant that our industries “have a continued licence to operate” in that they will be able to produce goods in an economically viable way and without impacting the environment.

Maria Cristina Russo stated that there was also a need to better join the dots between different funding instruments. The new Competitiveness Fund could be a process to support research seamlessly from lab to market. And she also foresaw increased support for technology infrastructure and circularity initiatives. She further stressed that collaboration is key to successful European competitiveness and that it is important to be strategic and focus on areas with the best chances for EU competitive advantage.

The Role of Innovation to Transform the Process Industry

This next plenary session was moderated by André Convents, A.SPIRE’s APG Vice-chair for Innovation Framework.

The panel consisted of Jürgen Tiedje, Head of Unit for Industrial Transformation at DG Research and Innovation, Joao Serrano Gomes, Policy Officer in DG CLIMA, Jurgen Van Holen, R&D Manager at Oleon, and Daniel Bielsa, Technology Coordinator for CIC ENERGIGUNE.

Discussing market deployment, Andre stressed the need for high, late-stage de-risking and synergies with regional incentives. Joao Serrano Gomes talked about the ETS Innovation Fund and said that the results of the 2023 call were to be published during the day (they dropped off later and were briefly presented at the conference). He indicated that an additional 85 projects had been funded for a total value of EUR 4.8 billion, making a running total of EUR 12 billion for the fund so far. Jürgen Tiedje explained that DG RTD works very closely with DG CLIMA and highlighted the support available through Horizon Europe for P4Planet projects. A lot of funding was available, and he invited attendees to “make good use of it”. Jurgen Van Holen presented the project INCITE, our February Success Story, and Daniel talked about the REslag project,  which, in January 2024, kicked off the Success Stories campaign.