This project will develop an open-sourced, platform agnostic and API based tool to support a bottom-up characterisation of energy supply and demand and simulate the cost-benefits of alternative options for recovery and use excess heat/cold for a wide range of industries. The tool will be able to match the energetic, temporal and spatial profiles of heat/cold donors with potential users, represented by nodes in existing or prospective networks. The unified platform will be composed of a set of independent Analysis Modules, dedicated to the modelling and simulation of Process, Techno-economic Optimization, Market and Business scenarios, that will interact with each other and with a Data Platform (Knowledge System) via a service bus (using REST micro services for instance) and coordinated by an Orchestrator (an independent module), enabling accurate and quick definition and configuration of customised pipelines, conceptual data flows, and business models to implement different technological and management solutions for industrial excess HC recovery and use (e.g. in process heating, heating & cooling networks, or for electricity generation).

By identifying feasible and robust technological solutions and best practices for the use of industrial excess heat, in terms of technology, governance, economy and environment, the EMB3Rs platform will promote the aimed sustainable development for the REII communities, namely by i) contributing to overcome the barriers for developing and deploying in HC solutions, i.e. reaching a critical mass of users, iii) identifying critical framework conditions and success factors and iv) promoting transfer and replication of solutions in other industrial sectors and iv) stimulating the convergence between energy, energy efficiency goals, CO2 reduction and business interests.