Every year, large amounts of energy are lost in industrial processes. In Norway, industry accounts for a third of national energy consumption, so energy efficiency measures will have a major impact. Reducing industry's energy needs and developing new methods for reusing surplus energy are among the most important things we can do to enable industry to utilize energy resources even more efficiently, and thereby also reduce its climate footprint, both nationally and internationally.
Energy-efficient production plays an important role for Norwegian industry in the utilization of our valuable resources from hydropower, minerals and oil and gas. It is now more important than ever to develop industry towards even more efficient use of energy resources, while at the same time finding solutions that minimize greenhouse gas emissions. This requires the development of new technology and new solutions.
SINTEF conducts research on energy efficiency for our customers within industry, transport and the building sector. An important research area is making Norway's power-intensive industry more efficient and achieving better utilization of surplus heat. There is significant potential in surplus heat and other types of energy that are not fully utilized in industrial processes.
Much of Norwegian industry mainly uses clean energy from hydropower. Nevertheless, making these industrial processes more efficient means reducing the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, because clean energy is freed up for other purposes that currently have higher emissions.
Together with our customers, we work to put in place solutions that allow as much as possible of the surplus energy from industrial processes to be better utilized; whether in internal processes, for external potential users, or fed back into the integrated energy system of the future.
