Good news for heat treatment at Leibniz IWT: the sub-project "Energy-efficient heat treatment", with which the IWT department is involved within the joint project "ETAimBestand - Technologie- und Methodenbaukasten zur Energieeffizienzsteigerung im Bestand der Metall verarbeitenden Industrie" (FKZ: 03EN2048A-I) is being funded with around 1.5 million euros according to a current decision. The joint project is under the leadership of the PTW of the TU Darmstadt and aims to develop solutions that enable the rapid, comprehensive and economic dissemination of energy efficiency technologies in the German industrial landscape, which are urgently needed to achieve the climate targets.

The "ETAimBestand" project, which was launched in November, has a planned duration of three years and a funding amount of around 10 million euros. Funding is provided by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) as part of the German government's seventh energy research programme. Project Management Jülich (PTJ) is responsible for the supervision.

Depending on the application and system limits, energy savings potentials of between 25 and 40 % of the total energy demand can be raised in the German industrial stock. However, the transfer of measures is associated with a high degree of complexity and many technical and organisational hurdles. In regular operation without external support, therefore, only the "low hanging fruits" for increasing energy efficiency are usually exploited. However, a comprehensive exploitation of the complex, systemic energy efficiency potentials in the German industrial portfolio is absolutely necessary in order to achieve the ambitious climate targets of the German government.