Industrial heat pumps, which can reach temperatures of up to 200°C, are already being deployed in industries like paper and pulp, wood, chemicals, food and drink, and textiles.
The potential is huge: they could provide around 39% of process heat needs if fully rolled out.
EHPA kicked off 2025 by bringing industrial heat pumps into the limelight, holding a workshop followed by an EU Parliament debate hosted by Sean Kelly MEP on the topic and specifically on how industrial heat pumps can recover and reuse waste heat.
This was supported by press releases, an infographic leaflet and a communications campaign.
Further events EHPA was involved in dug in even more, from a session we co-organised at the EU Sustainable Energy Week, to the EU-funded SPIRIT project’s summer school in Denmark organised with DTU, to our role as a partner with two speaking slots at the Industrial Heat Prague conference in November.
The EU is pushing the take-up of industrial heat pumps through policies focused on encouraging industrial electrification, such as the upcoming Industrial Accelerator Act and Electrification Action Plan. It is providing financing via a new ‘Innovation Fund’ auction for projects that decarbonise industrial process heat. This will be key to helping industry implement the switch from fossil fuel–based technologies to clean alternatives such as heat pumps.
Another important step in EHPA’s view would be by governments by shifting taxes off the electricity bill to make electrification more competitive – just like for residential heat pumps.
EHPA partners with end user organisations such as paper and pulp body Cepi, and in 2025 launched a new collaboration with the man-made fibres sector (CIRFS), as well as increasing dialogues with the chemicals and food and drink trade bodies.
The latter sector is also the focus of the three-year EXQUISHEAT project, in which EHPA is a partner, and which will identify where heat pumps can deliver the greatest efficiency gains in the food and drink sector and develop replicable solutions ready for market adoption. The BETTED project focuses specifically on the dairy industry and how energy efficiency and heat pumps can be integrated.
The SPIRIT project – as well as running the summer school mentioned above – is developing three full-scale demonstrations of heat pump technologies integrated at three different process sites in the paper and food & beverage industries.
EU–funded project PUSH2HEAT is looking into overcoming barriers and developing business models, and GEOFLEXheat focuses on geothermal energy technology for use in industry.
More information on our EU-funded projects, and how they drive innovation and support our policy work can be found here.
Read more of our annual report 2025:
- Introduction
- A clear policy direction
- Affordability for heat pumps
- Competitiveness and skills
- Flexibility
- Product design, innovation and certification
- Partnerships, communications and campaigns
