Launch of the Basque Industrial Hub for Circularity, an innovation hub for the decarbonisation of Basque industry.

The companies Petronor Innovación, Sidenor, Nortegas, Calcinor, SBS Process, Lointek, Smurfit Kappa and the Bilbao Bizkaia Water Consortium, together with the Energy Cluster and Tecnalia, a centre of research and technological development, have joined forces to create the first business and technology hub in the Basque Country focused on the decarbonisation of industry.

The mission of the Basque Industrial Hub for Circularity (BIH4C), led by Tecnalia, is to drive the transformation of existing industrial areas by identifying and implementing energy synergies, the efficient use of resources and technological innovation. To do so, it will promote the deployment of synergies between different industrial sectors through the development and demonstration of innovative decarbonisation technologies in real operating environments. Examples include hydrogen oxy-combustion in the steel industry, potentially from oxygen and hydrogen produced by electrolysis in the refining sector; CO2 capture in the lime industry and its use to produce methane or, in the future, synthetic fuels in the refining sector; and carbonation of steel slag using CO2 captured in the lime industry, for the production of building materials in the cement industry. Other potential synergies will also be explored in the form of hub expansion schemes; for example, the production of biofuels from industrial by-products such as paper waste or lignin.

The end goal is to identify opportunities for emission reductions through industrial synergies and their technological validation in the industrial environment, with the vision of reducing CO2 emissions by 20% and the consumption of material resources, water and energy of the participating companies by 10% in the coming years. In addition, the BIH4C will develop a tool to identify circular synergies in terms of energy and resource use in Basque industry. This tool will enable the generation and demand for multi-carriers such as O2, H2, CO2, methane or various wastes and raw materials to be mapped and quantified by industrial areas, and the impact that circularity can have on the efficient use of raw materials and the decarbonisation of industry in the Basque Country to be assessed.

Source: Cluster de Energía