From theory to practice: Supporting industrial decarbonization and energy cooperation in Austria

Abstract

A promising way to enhance sustainability and primary energy efficiency on an industrial scale is energy cooperation or industrial symbiosis. Due to heterogenic structures, there is no standard recipe to implement synergies - but the potential role of facilitators has been mentioned several times before. As external facilitators, we applied a mixed approach of interviews and workshops to push the development of energy cooperation at an Austrian industrial port & business park. The site was chosen to put the development process and theoretical cooperation solutions to the test.In collaboration with the park management and companies, synergy potentials were elaborated. In total 24 companies were interviewed, two workshops with companies and external experts conducted, an energy working group established and an energy roadmap drafted. Among the opportunities identified are i) enforced exchange of information on cooperation potentials and technical opportunities, ii) joint energy purchase and renewable energy communities, iii) inter-company waste heat utilization and iv) joint strategies on optimizing heavy transport.From our experiences we conclude that the most important barriers are missing knowledge and communication on possible synergies. These are followed by economic, technical and framework barriers. The applicability of cooperation solutions is highly case-specific. We found that solutions are more likely to be implemented given continuous information exchange, potentially initiated by a dominant and integrative company or central institution, which is in line with experiences reported for other cases. Thus, we strongly support to continue research on industrial symbiosis and funding of entities, which facilitate industrial symbiosis development.