In May, RTDS Group had the pleasure of welcoming project partners to our Vienna headquarters for the Month 36 (M36) Consortium Meeting of the SUSHEAT project. Marking the three-year milestone of this ambitious Horizon Europe initiative, the meeting provided an opportunity to review remarkable progress achieved so far by SUSHEAT, while addressing upcoming challenges, and defining the priorities for the project’s final year.
SUSHEAT aims to transform industrial heat upgrades through the smart integration of waste heat and renewable energy. Updates shared during the Scientific & Technical Committee (STC) sessions demonstrated the steady progress being made towards this objective. The meeting kicked off with in-depth technical discussions with UNED and KTH presenting the latest results from the Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA. Their findings showed that SUSHEAT configurations can reduce carbon emissions by up to 90% in optimal scenarios when compared to traditional gas boilers.
A major highlight of the technical review was the progress on the project’s core hardware components. ENERIN provided an update on the high-temperature heat pump, noting that production is nearly complete and the system is gearing up for its critical testing phase. In parallel, the teams from UDL, i-TES, and Analisis-DSC shared artificial intelligence-driven analyses of the Thermal Energy Storage (TES) designs, confirming that innovative phase change materials (PCM) are performing strongly in simulations, with enhanced heat storage and transfer capabilities compared to conventional solutions. KTH also outlined the validation roadmap for the project’s integrated system at TRL5, mapping out the final steps for laboratory adaptation and the experimental campaign scheduled to begin later this summer.
Beyond the hardware and thermodynamics, the meeting also highlighted the importance of ensuring that SUSHEAT’s innovations reach relevant stakeholders and fuure end users. Clio Agrapidis, SUSHEAT communication manager, presented recent dissemination and communication activities, including the “Heat Shift” videocast series, participation in global conferences, and targeted webinars designed to engage key industrial stakeholders. Together with LC Innoconsult’s strategic exploitation workshops, these efforts are helping to maximize the project’s impact and support the future uptake of SUSHEAT solutions beyond the project’s lifetime.
As SUSHEAT enters its final phase towards Month 48, the M36 Consortium Meeting represented a pivotal moment of alignment, collaboration and motivation. RTDS Group is proud to contribute to this journey and to have hosted such a successful gathering in Vienna.