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Industrial Energy Efficiency Accelerator: Phase 3 projects (funded under NZIP)

Updated 19 April 2023

Phase 3 aims to fund projects in which innovative technologies with potential to reduce energy consumption, maximise resource efficiency, and cut carbon emissions are developed and demonstrated in industry. It is designed to accelerate their deployment in UK industry, contributing towards achieving net zero by 2050. Such innovative technologies have applications across the UK industrial and manufacturing sectors.

The following 8 projects are to receive combined funding of over £3.6 million for Phase 3, leveraging around £2.6 million in private investment.

Industrialent

• Led by: 4T2 Sensors
• Technology Developer Location: Birmingham, West Midlands (England)
• Industrial Partner: Diageo
• Industrial Demonstration Location: Leven, Scotland
• Grant Funding: £125,257.14

4T2 sensors have developed an inline, flow­through sensor that can detect concentrations, contaminations, and mixtures of fluids. The project will install and trial the novel electrical impedance sensor in a beverage processing plant for Clean-­In­-Place (CIP) processes, in partnership with Diageo. CIP is an essential yet resource intensive operation that cleans process pipes and prevents cross contamination.

Once integration related challenges are overcome, the 4T2 sensor can offer significant improvements in response time and resolution above existing commercial sensors, creating an opportunity for active control of CIP, as opposed to systematic time-based programs. This will reduce the energy intensity of CIP operations on site, as well as the amount of water used in rinsing stages. For example, up to 1,135 kg of CO2 equivalent per year can be saved, reducing baseline water usage by 5.1% from 64,000t/yr on a single line of the plant.

Low Carbon Highway Regeneration

• Led by: Colas
• Technology Developer Location: Birmingham, West Midlands (England)
• Industrial Demonstration Location: Coventry, West Midlands (England)
• Grant Funding: £194,088.04

Colas are demonstrating an in-situ, cold, road resurfacing process where 100% of the existing road’s binder course is recycled, significantly reducing carbon emissions. The process has potential to improve efficiencies and economies over conventional techniques, by reducing time, cost, traffic disruption, carbon and overall waste, as well as saving energy and reducing the need for virgin materials.

The project will run over 2 phases. During Phase 1, a section of local highway will be surfaced; a ‘road train’ will plane the highway at the front, mix the recycled material with a bituminous emulsion binder component and then re-lay the surface at the rear. To increase market size, Phase 2 will reformulate the bituminous emulsion binder component to perform with a higher grading of UK road, such as A roads and motorways. This involves laboratory testing with independent review and assessment to ensure good road structure and performance.

Novel High Temperature Heat Pump Demonstration

• Led by: Futraheat
• Technology Developer Location: Surbiton, South East (England)
• Industrial Partner: Hepworth Brewery
• Industrial Demonstration Location: Pulborough, South East (England)
• Grant Funding: £406,264.86

Futraheat will demonstrate and validate their novel high temperature heat pump (HTHP) technology through integration and operation at Hepworth Brewery in West Sussex. The HTHP will recover waste heat at 100°C from the wort boiling process in the kettle, raise its temperature to 130°C, and return it at a rate of up to 300kWt to continue the boiling process. This closing of the energy loop will reduce energy consumption by approximately 80% and deliver fuel cost savings of about 35%. Carbon emissions will be reduced by at least 80%, with the potential for 100% carbon reduction when powered by electricity from renewable sources.

The project aims to prove the technology as a minimum viable product (MVP) for the brewing industry, whilst delivering the basis for a modular HTHP design for wider application across industry. A first phase of testing will take the existing demonstrator from TRL 6 to TRL 7, before system design improvements and a second phase of testing deliver an MVP proven in an operational environment to TRL 9. The key challenge is to ensure no impact on the manufactured product.

Ephyra Anaerobic Digestion Demonstration at Stockport Waste Water Treatment Works

• Led by: Royal HaskoningDHV
• Technology Developer Location: Peterborough, East of England
• Industrial Partner: United Utilities Water
• Industrial Demonstration Location: Stockport, North West (England)
• Grant Funding: £669,406.57

Royal HaskoningDHV will demonstrate their innovative Ephyra® anaerobic digestion (AD) system to optimise wastewater treatment. The Ephyra® AD process reconfigures conventional digestion from a completely mixed tank to a plug-flow (tanks in series) process with an artificial intelligence control to optimise process performance in real-time, using recirculation from the last tank to the first. This optimises biological efficiency and reduces short-circuiting compared to conventional, completely mixed systems. The novel system produces around 20% more biogas and increases processing capacity versus conventional digestion, potentially delivering up to 100% more throughput of feedstock, whilst maintaining a stable and efficient process with reduced downstream methane emissions, dewatering and recycling costs.

Ephyra® will be demonstrated at United Utilities Wastewater Treatment Works in Stockport, boosting biogas utilisation in existing combined heat and power systems and reducing operational costs, whilst moving the overall site towards energy neutrality. The system can also be applicable to waste and agricultural digestion, whilst being suitable for greenfield sites, as well as retrofitting to existing plants. This project thus supports wider deployment and developing engagement with other water and non-water sector AD operators. Ephyra® has the potential to significantly contribute to the UK water sector’s Net Zero 2030 target.

Odour Control Accelerator

• Led by: Luxus (Industrial Partner)
• Industrial Demonstraton Location: Louth, East Midlands (England)
• Technology Partner: The Technology Research Centre (TRC)
• Technology Partner Location: Grantham, East Midlands (England)
• Academic Partner: University of Lincoln
• Grant Funding: £617,514.83

Most Post-Industrial Waste and single source waste is now recycled, which means most unrecycled polymer is PCW (Post-Consumer Waste). This is typically contaminated with food and other residues with strong odours or decay to form strong, unpleasant odours. These odours are the biggest barrier to using PCW for new products and constrains wider plastics recycling. By reducing these odours, industry can produce more value-added products using PCW, to allow profitable growth.

In this project, Luxus, TRC, and the University of Lincoln are developing odour-extracting (ODEX) technology to demonstrator scale. As creating a tonne of virgin polymer requires 7x more carbon as recycling a tonne of mechanically recovered, melt-reprocessed polymer, this technology will greatly reduce the carbon footprint of industry products and improve resource efficiency by displacing virgin polymers with PCW compounds. By replacing 1 tonne of Virgin compound, 1 tonne of PCW recycled compound can save 20MWh of energy and reduce CO2 equivalent emissions by 6.18 tonnes. This technology should also enable ODEX compounds with high PCW content to meet growing demand in automotive and other sectors.

A new ultrasonic flow enhancement technology for the extrusion sector to reduce energy consumption and increase productivity

• Led by: Matrix Moulding Systems
• Technology Developer Location: Grantham, East Midlands (England)
• Industrial Partner: Polypipe
• Industrial Demonstration Location: Aylesford, South East (England)
• Grant Funding: £522,518.89

Polymer melt forming for extrusion & injection moulding is a highly energy intensive process; as polymer needs to be heated to high temperatures of typically 180–240°C to achieve a low enough melt viscosity to enable forming. Matrix Moulding Systems have recently developed, with previous IEEA funding, a novel flow enhancement technology using ultrasound for injection moulding. This has been proven to achieve energy savings of 24–34% in operational trials, with a productivity enhancement of ~25% through lowering the melt temperatures required.

This project is looking to apply the underlying innovation to extrusion to achieve similar energy savings and productivity benefits. To do this, technical challenges will need to be overcome, including; reconfiguring the technology for extrusion by determining the most effective sonotrode design, location, configuration, and amplitude; extending sonotrode longevity through protective coatings, modifying sonotrode geometry, or fabricating from alternative materials; and demonstrating the system at scale across a range of polymeric materials. On top of the energy savings and productivity improvements, this should deliver carbon footprint reductions of ~30%, thus contributing towards Net Zero and Clean Growth Strategy targets.

BSGEEA (Brewers Spent Grain Energy Efficiency Accelerator)

• Led by: PyroGenesys
• Technology Developer Location: Birmingham, West Midlands (England)
• Industrial Partner: Tennent Caledonian Breweries (TCB)
• Industrial Demonstration Location: Glasgow, Scotland
• Grant Funding: £181,574.59

This project will install and demonstrate PyroGenesys’ Pyrochemy biomass conversion technology at Tennent Caledonian Breweries Wellpark Brewery. The innovative technology will convert waste grain and hops (brewers spent grain, BSG) from brewing into heat to supply to the brewery, as well as into bio-oil and glucose. The project will improve energy efficiency and contribute to decarbonisation by reducing dependency on fossil fuel derived process heat (natural gas) and developing potential uses for coproduct streams (increasing the material carbon value of BSG).

Firstly, the project will determine suitable Pyrochemy feedstock pre-treatments and assess specific heat outputs and inputs for direct utilisation in the brewery. Secondly, compositional analysis of the 2-phase bio-oil will be characterised to investigate the potential to produce food grade glucose and thirdly, the opportunity for carbon sequestration through biochar use in horticulture/agriculture will be developed. The pilot plant has the potential for significant carbon and heat savings.

Scalable continuous manufacturing for sustainable chemical production

• Led by: Stoli Chem
• Technology Developer Location: Wellesbourne, West Midlands (England)
• Industrial Partner: Robinson Brothers
• Industrial Demonstration Location: West Bromwich, West Midlands (England)
• Grant Funding: £913,660.29

Stoli Chem, a process engineering innovator SME, Robinson Brothers, a large industrial end-user and independent chemicals manufacturer, and the Process Intensification Group at Newcastle University, have collaborated to launch a step-change in technology for the fine chemicals sector. They plan to transform inefficient batch processing into scalable continuous manufacturing by demonstrating Stoli Chem’s innovative Scalable Agitated Baffle Reactor (SABRe) system in industry. The technology combines the efficiency of continuous processing with the operational flexibility of batch. This has potential to significantly reduce the economic and environmental costs of chemical manufacturing, whilst delivering energy, resource and carbon savings.

The project aims to firstly overcome technical and implementation barriers for demonstrating the system. Following this, the project will seek to demonstrate the energy and material savings for 2 processes at pilot scale and 1 process on a commercially relevant scale, before validating the technology benefits in terms of savings, efficiency, and product quality. Ultimately, the project aims to pave the way for this low-carbon, efficient chemical manufacturing technology, that will strengthen UK competitiveness and supply chains.