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To attain climate neutrality by 2050, the European industry must achieve significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. The EU’s Green Deal with the new 55 % reduction target by 2030 and the ‘Fit for 55’ package set the frame for the transition. The Fit-For-55 package is accompanied by an impact assessment that includes scenario analyses for the development of the EU energy system until 2030. A perspective Beyond 2030 is not published, but essential to understand the need to achieve climate neutrality by 2050. Here, we develop two scenarios for the industry sector to benchmark the scenarios published by the EU. We extend our scenarios towards 2050. One scenario reflects current policies (not yet including the proposed fit-for-55 package) and a second scenario that is in line with meeting climate neutrality by 2050 (Mix95). We use the industry-sector simulation model FORECAST. The model calculates energy demand and GHG emissions pathways based on assumptions about policy instruments like CO2 prices or investment grants with a high technology detail.Results show that the current policy scenario is not in line with the Green Deal target and is far from reaching climate neutrality by 2050. The Mix95 Scenario achieves ~95 % GHG reduction by 2050. To meet this reduction, various strategies are necessary. A fast and comprehensive switch to electricity and hydrogen is driven by higher CO2 prices and OPEX support. Driven by the electrification of process heating, electricity demand increases significantly to ~1600 TWh by 2050 starting from 1018 TWh in the year 2018. Also, hydrogen sees a rapid uptake to reach 811 TWh by 2050 prioritizing use in steelmaking and chemical feedstocks. CCS and CCU are used to capture the remaining process emission in the cement and lime production resulting in 75 Mio. t CO2 captured in 2050. Effective instruments for circularity and material efficiency reduce the production of energy-intensive goods and thereby the demand for CO2-neutral energy carriers.

In 2018, emissions from the industrial sector in Germany amounted to around 190 million tons of CO2 equivalents, the majority of which were caused by companies in energy-intensive industries. According to Germany’s reduction target for this sector, these emissions must fall to 118 million metric tons by 2030. Its high dependence on fossil fuels, technical restrictions and hardly avoidable process emissions pose major challenges for the sector. In order to achieve near climate-neutrality in 2045, these challenges require a profound transformation in the basic materials industries. This contribution presents the results of a comprehensive bottom-up assessment comparing four technology pathways to a near carbon-neutral German industry sector until 2045. The analysis was carried out using the bottom-up energy demand model FORECAST, which is characterized by a high degree of technology and process detail. Its results show that the goal of a nearly carbon-neutral industrial sector in 2045 is possible, but will require enormous efforts. Large amounts of CO2-neutral secondary energy carriers like electricity and hydrogen will be needed in addition to improvements in material and energy efficiency. Depending on the technology focus, the amount of electricity used nearly doubles from 226 TWh up to 413 TWh in 2045. In the case of a “hydrogen economy,” the industrial use of hydrogen as a feedstock and as an energy source increases up to 342 TWh in 2045. The time horizon to 2030 is crucial if the transition to a near climate-neutral industry sector is to succeed by 2045. It must be possible to scale up CO2-neutral processes from the pilot and demonstration stage to industrial level by 2030 and enable their economic operation. This contribution therefore also places particular emphasis on the period up to 2030 and discusses those options for action in this time frame which have proved to be robust in several scenarios. The need for additional action is also elaborated based on the scenario results.