Electrification to accelerate decarbonization of industry
France’s energy and climate strategy is clear: if we are to achieve our decarbonization objectives, we will need to go hand in hand with massive efforts to reduce energy consumption, and with increasing electrification.
The idea is simple: replace the combustion of fossil fuels (natural gas, for example) with electricity. There is, however, one prerequisite: the electricity must first have been decarbonized. The good news is that in France, this is already largely the case. According to RTE, the proportion of decarbonized electricity reached 92.2% in 2023.
Transport, buildings, hydrogen production… many sectors offer electrification potential. And, of course, certain industrial processes.
56%
Electricity’s share of projected final energy consumption in 2050 (compared with 27% in 2021.)
Source: French Ministry of Ecology.
What processes are involved? How to electrify? What technical levers should be used? What are the benefits?
Insights from our expert Sébastien Papouin, Energy Technical Manager.
Which industrial processes could easily be electrified?
Two main types of process are directly concerned and could enable the decarbonization of industry:
- industrial activities using natural gas furnaces
- processes with hot water and/or steam requirements
There are numerous applications, whether for domestic hot water at 55-60°C for washing, for cooking at 75-85°C for milk pasteurization or for steam at 7-8 bar.
What technical solutions can be deployed to decarbonize industry?
Industrial furnaces
To return to our typology, natural gas furnaces can be replaced by electric furnaces.
We are currently seeing this in heavy industry, such as steelmaking, with the use of electric arc furnaces rather than melting furnaces. Examples can also be found in the glass industry.
But replacing natural gas-fired ovens with electric ovens is also possible – and simpler to implement – in other areas, particularly for cooking purposes.
It should be noted that upgrading the process to run on electricity means anticipating the increase in electrical power required throughout the site, as well as the associated equipment (transformers, electrical cabinets, etc.).
Hot water
Hot water and steam production also lend themselves well to process electrification, with different technical solutions.
Firstly, the gas boiler can be replaced by resistive heating, i.e. an electric boiler to produce hot water or steam. This is possible for low-power applications.
Secondly, a gas boiler can be replaced by a heat pump (or pumps) with a high coefficient of performance. At present, the heat pumps available in our catalog can produce hot water up to around 100°C.
The most interesting scenario is to use a source of waste heat from the process to power the heat pump (which will raise the temperature to the useful temperature). Some agri-food activities, such as refrigeration production, lend themselves particularly well to this approach.
High and low pressure steam
For higher-pressure steam production, there are also non-standardized, made-to-measure heat pumps that can directly produce steam at 7 bar (around 170°C), for example. The heat pump then becomes the process steam boiler.
Solutions also exist for industrial activities that do not have a source of waste heat to recover. It is possible to draw heat from the ambient air. To reach the required temperature, however, a series of heat pumps must be installed, which increases the investment cost.
Another example from the world of liquid concentration is provided by evapoconcentrators. The driving force of steam is replaced by CMV (mechanical vapor compression) or RMV (mechanical vapor recompression), which increases the pressure, and hence the temperature, of the vapors produced by the evaporation of water from the liquid to be concentrated.
Heating/drying
Another electrification of processes is heating and/or drying by radiation using infrared, microwave and high-frequency technologies. Technologies applicable according to product shape and type (wave/product interaction).
What are the benefits of electrifying processes?
Substituting electricity for natural gas in France brings considerable gains in terms of reducing process-relatedCO2 emissions.
For example, based on the carbon content of electricity in 2023, we estimate that the electrification of processes will lead to a 6-fold reduction inCO2 emissions, which is good news for the decarbonization of industry.
But electrifying processes can also bring financial benefits, as the customer case study below shows:
32 gCO2/kWh
Carbon intensity of electricity generation in France in 2023 (compared with over 200 gCO2/kWh for natural gas combustion)
Source: RTE
Customer case study :
- Initial process: gas-fired boiler for hot water production at 90°C
- Capacity: 900 kW of heat
- Technical solution: replace boiler with heat pumps in series (cold source: ambient air)
→ Annual savings on OPEX: €75,000
Source : Dametis
What are the other long-term solutions for decarbonizing industry?
Replacing fossil fuels with hydrogen is another solution. In this case, it could be said to be an indirect electrification of processes. In fact, to meet industry’s decarbonization targets, the hydrogen used must itself be decarbonized. It will therefore not have to be produced from fossil fuels (by steam reforming of natural gas, for example), as is currently the case worldwide, but by electrolysis, with the electrolyzers themselves powered by decarbonized electricity. This solution is technically viable, but the market is still in its infancy, and littlegreen hydrogen is currently available.
