The industrial sector emits about 28% of global greenhouse gas emissions (mostly CO2), making it a major contributor to global warming and rising environmental emergency. At the same time, the current generation of energy management software is far from enabling efficient energy management at complex industrial sites. The available applications are not able to capture the full process chain, including energy conversions and locally produced commodities which are very typical in the industry. The challenge lies not only in applying analytics to enormous amounts of energy data, but also in linking this data with external information – industrial processes and production data, regulatory info and market data. We tackle these challenges by implementing novel modelling techniques. The Energy Hub is the first energy management platform that makes complex industrial processes fully energy transparent and complies with all upcoming regulation. The Energy Hub unlocks to an unprecedented extent insight into efficiency, deviations and cost allocation, down to product level and in real time, that none of the other tools is currently able to compete with. It leads to savings in energy consumption from 5% to 15%, helping industrial companies to reduce CO2 competitively. By boosting efficiency, the Energy Hub contributes to achieving climate goals and sustainable economic growth. Our value proposition has been validated by numerous industrial giants including our early adopters Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer. The 500 largest targeted customers in the EU alone represent 3,500 industrial sites with a €300 million recurring revenue potential to us per annum. Our target for 2025 is to have at least 500 industrial sites connected to the Energy Hub thus saving 1% CO2 emissions in the EU. This feasibility study is aimed at validating technical and economic feasibility of the Energy Hub before moving forward with end-stage development within the framework of the EIC Accelerator programme.

R-Aces means a step-change in the contribution of European Industry to the climate targets of the EU. The sector after all represents 25% of all energy demand – and 50% of all cooling and heating - on the continent; yet only 16% comes from renewables. By focusing on collective measures and clustering, the efficiency of industry can be drastically increased. The focus of R-Aces therefore is to turn high-potential, high-impact industrial clusters into Ecoregions that achieve at least a 10% reduction in emissions. An Ecoregion is an area where energy, material and information exchanges occur between various companies and actors to reduce waste and energy/material consumption. Each region is centered on an (eco-)industrial park or (eco-)business park, linked to its surroundings by a 4th/5th generation district heating/cooling network. The consortium sees this project as a capping stone, condensing the knowledge and experience gathered throughout H2020 into a set of three focused tools embedded in selected support actions. The tools consist of an assessment tool; legal decision support for joint contracts; and a smart energy management platform for clusters. The support actions are built around peer-to-peer learning, more formal coursework and serious games. Together they enable a cluster to really become an EcoRegion and set up meaningful energy collaboration. The entire package of tools and support is aimed at the high-potential clusters identified in the European Thermal Roadmap. It will be validated in three of them (all are part of the consortium); actively deployed in another seven; and disseminated to ninety of them. In addition, the tools and support methodology will be made available to third parties in a sustainable way after the end of this two-year project. The project consortium consists of the entire value chain needed for energy collaboration – suppliers, ESCO, cluster managers, support – and represents many years of proven experience in this field.