Working Group | ENERGY AND EMISSIONS IN MANUFACTURING

The “Energy and Emissions in Manufacturing” working group integrates industrial practice and research to transfer practical solutions from research into industry. In this way, PTW and its partner companies are making a difference on the path to climate-neutral production.

Motivation

The manufacturing sector is currently under pressure to transform, driven by rising energy and CO₂ prices as well as regulatory requirements. At the same time, many companies lack sufficient data transparency regarding energy and emissions flows, particularly in relation to indirect energy consumption, which makes holistic decision-making difficult. Added to this is a significant need to catch up in terms of energy flexibility. Production systems have rarely been designed to respond to a volatile energy supply and, consequently, fluctuating prices. Artificial intelligence offers considerable potential in this regard, which has not yet been fully exploited due to a lack of viable options for economic implementation. Similarly, the absence of approaches to strategic system transformation exacerbates the isolated implementation and consideration of measures. This creates a gap between existing technological possibilities and their practical application within the company.

Objective

The working group aims to bridge this gap. Existing measures are to be translated into practical application. In addition, innovative use cases are tested in collaboration with the working group’s partners to adapt them to the needs of industry at an early stage. To boost the participants’ innovation performance, the working group brings together stakeholders, their knowledge and skills, and their technical infrastructure. Through cross-company collaboration, participants benefit from new impetus, reduced internal effort, methodologically sound solutions and a higher likelihood of technological measures being implemented.

Topics and format of the working group

The working group addresses four key areas in support of the sustainable transformation of organisations. These include energy and emission monitoring, strategy and competence development, the integration of energy and production systems, and methods for enhancing energy flexibility and forecasting.

The working group operates on a six-month cycle comprising alternating processing phases and meetings at the ETA-Fabrik. During the biannual meetings of all participants in the working group, the results of the processing phase are presented, keynote talks from the research and industry sectors are delivered, and relevant topics and next steps for the upcoming processing phase are defined. Each processing phase focuses on a specific topic, so that after a period of two years, every topic has been addressed once.