About
RE-WITCH will demonstrate advanced thermally-driven industrial cooling technologies based on ADsorption and ABsorption processes driven by an optimized mix of low-grade waste and renewable sources (innovative high vacuum flat plate solar collectors). Such solutions will be demonstrated in 4 demo sites (Italy, Greece, Spain & Poland) encompassing food and beverage, paper sectors as well as industrial sectors where heat-to-cold solutions are not yet widely explored (bio-refinery).
The activity will be completed by studying the replicability of proposed technologies in replication sites even integrated with District Heating Networks (DHN).
The project will be delivered by an industrial-driven consortium of 26 partners from 10 countries and it is composed by some of the most innovative SMEs, LEs and R&D centers in the field of industrial renewable H&C leveraging experience from industrial and EU-funded projects (HYCOOL, SO-WHAT, Indus3Es).
The multi-disciplinary composition of the consortium ensures that all the challenges (technical and non-) will be addressed to ultimately bring RE-WITCH solutions to the market by 2029. Innovative open access modelling platforms and engineering solutions will also be developed to facilitate the design, upscale, replication and integration in industrial processes of the proposed technologies.
Thanks to a stakeholders’ driven dissemination and communication campaign, RE-WITCH will ultimately demonstrate transformative technological solutions that unlock the combined potential of low-grade waste and renewable heat use in industries, hence also targeting integration of heat-to-cold technologies into relevant EU policies.
Concept and activities
RE-WITCH aims at developing and demonstrating innovative efficient thermally-driven cooling and heating technologies for industrial processes, game-changers solutions to unlock the potential of low-grade waste and renewable heat use in industries. Innovative open access modelling platforms and engineering solutions will be also developed to facilitate the design, upscale, replication and integration of the proposed technologies in industrial processes.
RE-WITCH will:
- Develop and demonstrate innovative thermally-driven technologies, based on i) a new generation of ADsorption chillers, more compact and less expensive, to be either directly integrated in the process or provided in a containerized solution along with air compressors and ii) 2 new working cycles of ABsorption chillers, integrating a mechanical compressor providing both heating and cooling as well as a dual evaporator/absorber providing cooling at different temperature levels and thermal powers.
- Foresee an optimised techno-economic integration between low-grade (<100 °C) industrial waste heat and high-efficiency vacuum flat plate solar collectors, to drive process cooling generation and provide process heating.
- Demonstrate the innovative Ad/Absorption cooling solutions in 4 demo sites, covering typical industrial sectors with high cooling demand (food and beverage) and non-standard sectors (biofuels production). Complementing the demonstration with 3 replication sites, covering other possible relevant sectors (pulp and paper, DHN-connected industries, data centers), investigating RE-WITCH potential applications and benefits.
Why and what?
Objectives
- Integration of renewable heat or industrial waste heat in heat-to-cold conversion systems to generate cold for industrial processes, with targets to advance the technologies readiness level in terms of capacity and temperature,
- Valorisation of low-grade waste heat and high-efficiency renewable sources for the future industrial cooling provision,
- Identify the target industrial processes, assess the impacts on these processes in terms of energy savings and GHG and air pollutant emissions reductions. Preliminary assessment at proposal stage,
- Improve the refrigeration system efficiency and environmental friendliness: controls, innovative materials, components, working fluids,
- Integrate and demonstrate the refrigeration system in an industrial application in at least one industrial sector,
- Identify the potential technical and non-technical barriers, investigating notably other mitigation alternatives than gas-fired backups,
- Analysis of the potential industrial applications and related benefits (technical, economic, climatic, environmental), and the integration of RE-WITCH innovations in the overall network,
- Define an exploitation strategy, including a strong business case and sound exploitation strategy, toward the technologies’ commercialization, to plan future commercial demonstrations supported, for instance, by the Innovation Fund as well as to drive new policy recommendations to support:
- the deep decarbonization of industrial sectors,
- increase of the competitiveness of EU industry for process H&C,
- reduction of fuel dependency.
Work plan
- WP4 – Process requirements and industrial sectors mapping toward RE-WITCH technology design and integration (UoB)
- WP5 RE-WITCH System simulation and modelling approach for technology design, demonstration and replication (UNIGE)
- WP6 Innovative adsorption technology design (Sorption Technologies)
- WP7 Innovative absorption technology design (BS NOVA)
- WP8 Innovative cooling technologies manufacturing and testing (CNR)
- WP9 System integration and demo sites design (IDP)
- WP10 Final implementation including systems integration and procurement (IDP)
- WP11 Monitoring platform and control development (SIGLA)
- WP12-13 Demo sites pre-monitoring and installation + Demonstration campaign at TRL7 (TECNALIA)
- WP14 -16 Business modelling, standardization and exploitation (IVL)
- WP 17 Economic, environmental and replication analysis (PNO)
- WP18-20 Stakeholder oriented dissemination and communication activities (IEECP)
Pilots
RE-WITCH will demonstrate its innovative Ad/Absorption cooling solutions in 4 demo sites, covering typical industrial sectors with high cooling demand (food and beverage: BROWAR in Poland and COVAP in Spain) and non-standard sectors (biofuels production: MILOIL in Greece).
The project efficient thermally-driven cooling and heating technologies for industrial processes, game-changers solutions, are tested in 4 different industries to unlock the potential of low-grade waste and renewable heat use.
FOCUS ON… COVAP – SPAIN
- Simultaneous Heating & Cooling for the food industry.
- Plant in Pozoblanco.
- Technologies demonstrated: Hybrid absorption/compression Heat Pump (100kWc/250kWh)) and solar thermal (80-100m²). Input energy comes from biomass.
- Technology providers: BS-NOVA and TVP Solar.
FOCUS ON… MILOIL – GREECE // Harnessing waste heat for cooler renewable fuels
- Cooling at different temperature levels.
- Technologies demonstrated: dual evaporator/absorber chiller (40kW (10°C) & 400kW (20/25°C) and solar thermal (30kW).
- Technology providers: BS-NOVA and TVP Solar.
FOCUS ON… BROWAR Głubczyce – POLAND
- A low temperature cooling installed in a brewery.
- Technologies demonstrated: Adsorption chiller (200kW) and solar thermal (50-70kW).
- Technology providers: SOR and TVP Solar.
FOCUS ON ICP – ITALY
- Integrated air compressor /adsorption chiller to a pulp and paper industrial plant in Italy.
- ICP Srl is a large paper mill located in Capannori, Tuscany, Italy. It belongs, along with Cartiera dell’Adda, to the Paper Board Alliance corporate group, representing the largest European manufacturer of recycled light cardboard. The company has 110 employees, two machineries continuously operating for the paper recycling and cardboard manufacturing, producing up to 150,000 tonnes of cardboard per year. The company is currently devoting strong efforts to increase the process sustainability, thanks to the use of a high efficiency co-generator, supplying both electricity and water vapor to the plant as well as a biological water purifier, to minimize the use and pollution of process water. The cooling demand is currently covered by two large vapor compression chillers (overall cooling capacity up to 140 kW), needed to guarantee the safe operation of the control rooms. Thanks to the integration of the RE-WITCH adsorption chiller, the electric consumption of the vapor compression chillers will be limited, by recovering waste heat provided by the air compressing units. An anticipated electricity saving up to 35% for cooling provision is calculated.
Technologies
Briefings presenting each technology are under preparation.
RE-WITCH will develop and test:
- A new generation of ADsorption chillers, more compact and less expensive, to be either directly integrated in the process or provided in a containerized solution along with air compressors.
- 2 new working cycles of ABsorption chillers, integrating a mechanical compressor providing both heating and cooling as well as a dual evaporator/absorber providing cooling at different temperature levels and thermal powers.
Absorption cooling is a technology exploiting the ability of a liquid solution, based on a sorbent (e.g. LiBr) and a refrigerant (e.g. water), to perform a refrigeration cycle driven by low-grade waste/RES, thus substituting a mechanical compressor. It is considered as SoA technology, however, all sorption cooling devices are bound to hard restrictions concerning temperatures: driving heat temperature and chilling temperature set limitations to the reject heat temperature which can be attained. Technologies developed and demonstrated during RE-WITCH can overcome these limitations, by breaking the tight link between the thermodynamic states of the different components which provide cooling at low temperature T0, output of heat at medium temperature T1, and consume driving heat at high temperature T2. These limitations arise from the equilibrium data of the working fluid pair LiBr/water and the crystallization of the mixture at low water content.
Two different approaches are proposed to accomplish flexible use of sorption heat pumps for heat upgrade and cooling in various industrial constellations: i) single-stage sorption heat pump cycle complemented by a mechanical vapor compressor in order to achieve an increased temperature lift for simultaneous H&C; ii) evaporator-absorber pair duplicated in order to provide cooling at different temperature levels increasing the flexibility also thanks to an innovative control approach.
- An optimised techno-economic integration between low-grade (<100 °C) industrial waste heat and high-efficiency vacuum flat plate solar collectors, to drive process cooling generation and provide process heating.
RE-WITCH will implement a Digital Twin (DT) platform for district heating (DHN) for RE-WITCH solutions, BIM-based engineering of RE-WITCH solution integration as well as develop an innovative integrated control and monitoring platform and use Open access (OA) numerical modelling and optimization platform.
Read more about:
Knowledge hub
REPORTS
Please note that the following publications are still subject to the European Commission’s approval.
Please note that the project reports will be added as they are published, along the project life.
- D16.1 – Final checklist of alignment of the solutions with standards and policy recommendations at national and EU level, including BREF, M47
- D17.1 – Replication feasibility studies and assessment of potential integration of REWITCH technologies in different industrial environments and DHNs also considering TES integration, M48
- D17.2 – Economic, environmental and social impact assessment of RE-WITCH technologies, M48
Other project reports are planned to be confidential, yet, partners will strive to make results available in shorter format such as briefings, infographics, and more.
SCIENTIFIC PUBLICATIONS
Follow the project updates on the Zenodo Community
- Ziegler, F, Bellos, E., Corrales Ciganda, JL., Dehler, D., Elbel, S., Nikolopoulos, N., Petersen, S., Schweigler, C. (2024) Absorption cooling cycle serving two temperature levels. ISHPC2024 International Sorption Heat Pump Conference.
- IEA Solar Heat Worldwide 2024 report – RE-WITCH feeds into chapter 5. (see more on the IEA page)
- Vasta, S., Sapienza, A., Frazzica, A., Jakob, U., Schweigler, C., Ziegler, F., Mittelbach, W., Baelz, A., Papageorgiou, D., Agirre, M.E., & Giganda, J.L. (2024). Developing and demonstrating innovative solutions for renewable and waste heat-driven cooling technologies in industries: the RE-WITCH project. Proceedings of EuroSun 2024.
- Musannif Shah, Valeria Palomba, Andrea Frazzica (Istituto di Tecnologie Avanzate per l’Energia CNR ITAE), Mikel Arenas-Larrañaga (SPF Institut für Solartechnik, OST) , Daniel Carbonell (SPF Institut für Solartechnik, OST, DCarbo Energy Consulting) (2024).
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COMMUNICATION AND ADMINISTRATIVE REPORTS
MULTIMEDIA
Short project material
Get to know more
Videos and podcasts
MEDIA
The "2cool2waste Initiative"
Within Re-Witch, we set up a group of sister projects working on heating and cooling solutions, willing to organise joint events, write briefings, newsletters etc. Do not hesitate to write to us if you are interested to join our regular calls: marine (at) ieecp.org
- SUSHEAT – SUSHEAT will contribute to deep industrial decarbonisation by providing a thermal heat upgrade solution for factory processing. LinkedIn
- SPIRIT – Fostering the decarbonisation of industry through high-temperature heat pumps. LinkedIn
- PUSH2HEAT – Pushing forward the market potential of heat upgrading technologies. LinkedIn
- HYCOOL-IT – Hybrid Cooling & Management for IT infrastructures. LinkedIn
- HEATWISE – Holistic Energy Management & Thermal Waste integrated system for Energy Optimization. LinkedIn
- SEEDS – Cost-effective and replicable Renewable Energy Sources integrated electrified heating and cooling systems for improved energy efficiency and demand response. LinkedIn
- Senergy Nets – Increase the Synergy among different Energy Networks. LinkedIn
- MODERATOR – Immersion Cooling and Advanced Materials for Heat Recovery from Data Centers. LinkedIn
- EEETHOS – Decarbonising industrial process heating. LinkedIn
- GEOSYN – Enhancing industrial energy efficiency through steam high-temperature heat pumps and heat-powered cooling systems with operational flexibility and public trust. LinkedIn
- THUNDER – The THUNDER project aims to overcome existing barriers to the widespread adoption of data centre waste heat recovery strategies. LinkedIn
- I-UPS – Innovative High Temperature Heat Pump for Flexible Industrial Systems (EU Funded). LinkedIn
- UP-FLEXH – Innovative High Temperature Heat Pump for Flexible Industrial Heat on Demand (Nationally funded)
- EXQUISHEAT – Standardised Heat Pump Solutions for Sustainable Food Production
(Cool) women in science
In 2025, RE-WITCH and the CoolLIFE project organised a series of actions related to the women in science day. Read more and access all material on that page!
Τhe Geo-cluster:
The Geo-Cluster is a vibrant European network of 11 EU-funded projects working together to accelerate geothermal energy solutions for industrial applications across Europe.
This collaboration showcases how joint research and innovation can fast-track the development and market uptake of geothermal technologies, contributing to and benefiting from shared insights, synergies, and breakthroughs.
GEOSYN – Enhancing industrial energy efficiency through steam high-temperature heat pumps and heat-powered cooling systems with operational flexibility and public trust
GeoS-TECHIS – Empowering Industrial Decarbonization with Innovative Geothermal and Thermal Solutions
USES4HEAT – Underground Large Scale Seasonal Energy Storage for Decarbonized and Reliable Heat
GEOFLEXheat – Geothermal Extraction and Upgrade with Flexible Usage for Industrial Heat Applications
FlexGeo Project– Shaping the future of FLEXible GEOthermal energy
CoolLIFE – Driving a sustainable future in space cooling
RE-WITCH – Renewable & Waste heat valorisation in Industries via Technologies for Cooling production & energy Harvesting-EU Horizon
HOCLOOP Project – Environmentally friendly geothermal energy solution based on a horizontal closed loop
URGENT project– Sustainable and affordable URban Geothermal Exploration Novel Technologies and workflows
INTERSTORES – International Innovation Network for the Development of Cost- and Environmentally Efficient Seasonal Thermal Energy Storages
TREASURE project – Demonstrating Large Pit Thermal Energy Storages
Other interesting projects
Events & newsletter
COMING EVENTS
Meet/hear from RE-WITCH in the coming months at:
- Meet us at ENLIT, 18-20/11/2025 in Bilbao, Spain. We will have a stand with the 2Cool2Waste cluster of projects.
PAST EVENTS
- The coolest cold from the cleanest heat – How can industries turn excess heat to cooling, and more witchcraft! The project kick off webinar took place May 26, 2025, see the event report and recording here.
- Geo-Cluster webinar – Sustainable Heating & Cooling Solutions for Industries and District Heating. Watch the recording.
NEWSLETTER
A newsletter with RE-WITCH topics – special news and events, in your mailbox 1 -2 per year!
Note that you can also get access to the RE-WITCH Stakeholders Community to profit from exclusive benefits. The Community engages stakeholders, especially experts with established networks in the H&C ecosystem, willing to support the project goals to accelerate deep renovation in the industrial sector by reducing energy use, costs, and emissions. If you register to the Community, no need to subscribe below to the newsletter, you’ll get it automatically. (see next tab)
Newsletter past issues: coming soon!
Privacy policy.
Join the project Stakeholder Community
What is the RE-WITCH Stakeholder Community?
The RE-WITCH community engages a group of stakeholders – and hopefully you are on board! Being an expert with established networks, you can support the project goals to accelerate deep renovation in the industrial sector by reducing energy use, costs, and emissions. In addition, the information provided will help researchers take a step forward in the development of the innovative RE-WITCH solutions, paving the way for their market uptake and developing the policy framework that support the deep decarbonization of industrial sectors, an increase of the competitiveness of EU industry for processed H&C, as well as a reduction of fuel dependency.
Why your participation matters?
As a representative of the H&C ecosystem you will:
- Help the RE-WITCH project to a successful development, implementation, and application of the innovative RE-WITCH solutions that meet market needs while contributing to resource efficiency and sustainability.
- Participate in co-creation workshops to align academic research with industry needs and policy frameworks.
- Contribute to discussions on the developed educational program, ensuring RE-WITCH impact extends to future researchers and practitioners.
What you’ll gain as a Stakeholder Community member:
Your participation as key stakeholder offers the following benefits:
- Gain early access to RE-WITCH findings.
- Get exclusive access to restricted workshops.
- Exchange and collaborate with experts from the H&C ecosystem.
- Expand your professional network by engaging with European institutions and technology innovators.
- Be invited to dedicated dissemination and communication events.
- Receive 1 – 2 Newsletters a year.
The above just represent some examples of the possible activities in which the stakeholders can be involved.
Participating in the RE-WITCH project as member of Stakeholder Community will allow you to stay in contact with a consortium of innovation actors which will try to bring to the market innovative heating and cooling solutions for the industrial sector. You will get updates on the most relevant innovations achieved in the course of the project, also being able to get information about the demonstration campaign and the related techno-economic performance of the developed solutions for a future commercial application.
Consent form / privacy policy.
For More Information please contact:
Project Coordinator: Dr. Andrea Frazzica, [email protected].
You only want to receive the newsletter and do not want to become a RE-WITCH Stakeholder Community member? SUBSCRIBE here.
