REPowerEU at VTT

REPowerEU is financed from NexGeneration EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).

VTT’s REPowerEU activities consist of three thematic openings, Postdoc and PhD programme and Bioruukki extension of Clean Energy Pilot Infrastructure. Each thematic opening has research projects under it. All together we have 15 research projects. Work of Post doc and PhDs is linked to one of the projects under thematic openings.

VTT’s Thematic openings:

1. Electricity storage and accelerating clean energy
Electrification, sector integration, and related electricity storage are critical to the transition of the existing energy system. Variation in electricity and energy system are increasing by rapidly expanding wind and solar power capacities in northern and arctic areas. This requires a new set of tools, from sector integration (also connecting mobility and process industry), new storage solutions, and electrification in integrating renewable electricity production to process industry use. Electrified processes in the heavy process industry can significantly contribute to balancing energy systems by substantially improving these industries' large-scale demand response capabilities. This is especially emphasized in countries like Finland, with large shares of carbon-intensive process industry. Dependency on critical raw materials primarily concerns electrification and electricity storage technologies, and this is one of the most significant bottlenecks to tackle to advance the rapid deployment of clean energy.

Projects
- Sector-integratedand resilient energy system enabling green transition
- Electrification ofTransport
- CRM for clean energy
- Industrial CO2 reuse
- Energy storage concepts and flow batteries

2. Energy efficiency and decarbonization of industry
Significant improvements and fundamental transformation in the heavy process industry are needed to both enable the detachment of the heavy process industry from fossil carbon and save significant amounts of energy, thus minimizing the demand for newbuilt clean energy capacity. This allows the process industry to add value to the refining of material streams within Europe, form a basis for the green industry, and strengthen Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem. The opening crossbreeds with the Hydrogen economy opening, as most of the technologies to significantly increase product yields of industries utilizing sustainable carbon flows are based on the introduction of hydrogen to the system in addition to developing new energy-efficient processes with the potential for up to 75% increase of production with the same input. Boosting industrial decarbonization by searching for alternative inputs and looking for possibilities for negative emissions are in focus. Industrial-scale CCU products based on sustainable carbon flows support diversifying transport energy carrier portfolios and renewing raw material bases in carbon-containing chemicals and materials. In the forest industry, the main challenge is related to the availability of forest-based biomass. Currently, chemical pulping has around 50 % product conversion from wood. To drastically increase the conversion to the level of 70 – 80 %, the energy efficiency of such a manufacturing operation must be increased. A new Nordic initiative, “emission-free pulping - program”, aims at a breakthrough in energy and material efficiency, enabling the burning of less black liquor in pulp mills. In Finland, this could reduce on an annual basis around 1,6 million tons of CO2 – emissions while increasing conversion from wood to products: from 50 % to 70 – 80 %.

Projects
- Emission Free Pulping
- EnergyFirst
- Modelling of electrolysis and electrochemistry with CFD
- CO2 capture and supply for P2X processes
- Industrial electrification concepts
- Resilient data tools for realising energy transition

3. Hydrogen economy
Hydrogen is one of the keys to debottlenecking and enabling the twin transition in the energy system and industry. The theme focuses on significant openings towards strengthening Europe’s net-zero technology products manufacturing ecosystem, such as developing solutions beyond the first investment wave promising considerable efficiency improvements in hydrogen technologies in hydrogen production and considerably more energy efficient solutions in hydrogen storage and use as such or in power-to-x technologies. This covers activities from investing in R&D infrastructure for industrially relevant hydrogen production, storage, and utilization supporting deployment of renewal of critical energy infrastructure; and highlighting the significance of potential in utilizing hydrogen and hydrogen derived fuels in marine and aviation applications for decarbonization and diversification of energy sources needed for critical export activities.

Projects
- Novel materials forhydrogen and ammonia production and storage
- CleanEngines
- H2 Matters 
- Industrial Hydrogen