Phase out fossil fuel in energy intensive industries through the efficient integration of renewable energy sources

TOPIC ID: HORIZON-CL5-2026-02-D4-06

Type of grant: Call for proposals

General information

Programme:

Call: Cluster 5 Call 02-2026 (WP 2025) (HORIZON-CL5-2026-02)

Type of action: HORIZON-IA HORIZON Innovation Actions

Type of MGA: HORIZON Action Grant Budget-Based [HORIZON-AG]

Status: Forthcoming

Deadline model: single-stage

Planned Opening Date: 16 September 2025

Deadline dates: 17 February 2026 17:00 (Brussels time)

Topic description

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Based on the results of the project, at least one industrial sectorwith a significant heating demand in the EU and Associated Countries develops pathways and business models to improve its energy efficiency, and to significantly reduce its consumption of fossil fuel and its emissions of GHG and other pollutants (including air pollutants), while preserving / enhancing its global competitiveness;
• With the goal of completely phasing out the use of fossil fuels in an industrial plant with a significant heating demand, the process(es) is(are) tightly integrated to minimise energy losses and its (their) energy supply relies on the local integration of a combination of renewable energy sources, including, where appropriate, process flexibility and storage to minimise its demand on the electricity grid.

Proposals are expected to demonstrate an innovative solution for the efficient, long lasting and cost-effective local integration of one or a combination of renewable thermal, electrical, bioenergy and other renewable energy sources in industrial processes, for heating, cooling and power generation, while optimising process efficiency and reuse, possibly upgrade of excess heat, with the aim of avoiding or drastically reducing fossil fuel use.

Process flexibility and energy storage can also be integrated, to match the energy demand of the industrial process with the variable renewable energy supply profile, and to minimise electricity demand from the power grid. Where possible, the integration with neighbouring industries and/or communities should be considered for the benefit of energy and resources sharing and efficiency.

The solution should be designed to ensure that the industrial process avoids or has very low GHG and other pollutant emissions, ensures high reliability and safety, and high physical and cyber security. It should be physically demonstrated in an industrial environment and be applicable to a significant share of the total energy demand of the industrial plant. The project should demonstrate through numerical simulations that the physically demonstrated solution can be scaled up to completely phase out the use of fossil fuels.

The project should facilitate the future deployment of the solution in the EU and Associated Countries’ plants in the same industrial sector(s). Already before starting the design phase, the needs of most EU and Associated Countries’ factories in the same industrial sector(s) should be surveyed and analysed in order to design a solution that can be adapted to meet most of them, to identify common components to be optimised/standardised and to issue/disseminate technical and economic guidelines.

Proposals are expected to present a strong business model and sound exploitation strategy for the proposed solution, as outlined in the introduction to this Destination.

Start submission

The submission system is planned to be opened on the date stated on the topic header.

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