When people talk about industrial decarbonization, they first think of steel, cement, or chemicals – of blast furnaces, rotary kilns, and cracking plants. What often stays in the background is the energy carrier that makes all these processes possible in the first place: process heat.
It is the single largest item in energy consumption in nearly every sector, and yet its transformation potential is frequently underestimated in everyday business practice. Process heat seems self-evident – it’s always there, it works, and precisely for that reason it rarely becomes the focus of investment and sustainability decisions.
This is exactly where the Cluster Decarbonization of Industry (CDI) comes in. With its new web-based tool “Transformation Pathways for Process Heat,” unveiled to the public at a press conference on February 19, 2026, CDI is giving industrial companies a digital instrument that specifically addresses this blind spot. The tool is aimed in particular at small and medium-sized enterprises that are confronted with the demands of climate policy but often lack either the personnel or the financial resources to carry out in-depth transformation analyses on their own.
CDI’s message is clear: decarbonization is not an abstract promise but a concrete task – and it begins with understanding one’s own starting position.
Climate Neutrality by 2045
Under its Climate Protection Act, Germany has committed to becoming greenhouse-gas neutral by 2045. For industry, this means existing production processes must be fundamentally redesigned in less than two decades – a task whose complexity and depth can hardly be overstated.
The industrial sector faces particular pressure here: it currently accounts for around one-fifth of Germany’s greenhouse gas emissions, and a large share of these emissions is directly attributable to the generation of process heat. Natural gas, heating oil, and coal remain the dominant energy carriers in industrial heat supply, and replacing these fossil sources with low-emission alternatives is both technically demanding and economically complex.
The challenge is not purely technical in nature, either. Companies looking to transform their heat supply processes face a host of decisions: Which technology is suitable for my specific temperature level? What funding is available? What regulatory requirements do I need to observe? And above all: where do I even start?
It is precisely this sense of disorientation in the face of such complexity that CDI’s new tool aims to resolve. As Prof. Dr. Mario Ragwitz, head of CDI’s Process Heat Innovation Group and director of the Fraunhofer IEG, puts it: the transformation offers many degrees of freedom as well as many constraints, and the tool is meant to serve as a navigator for industry – one that leads from the right questions to the right answers.
From Idea to Application: How the Tool Came About
The Process Heat Innovation Group, led by Prof. Dr. Ragwitz and initially set up and guided by Prof. Uwe Riedel, director of the DLR Institute of Low-Carbon Industrial Processes, brought together around 40 experts from science and industry to develop a structured approach to decarbonizing process heat.
The original idea was modest: a simple checklist that companies could use to roughly assess their situation. But as discussions within the group progressed, it became clear that this approach fell short. The experts wanted more – a tool that wouldn’t just classify but actually navigate; one that wouldn’t just ask questions but also point to concrete options based on the answers given.
Prof. Riedel sums it up: heat is the connecting problem across all industrial processes, and the collective knowledge CDI has built up over years of joint work is now being poured into this tool. The next logical step, he notes, is consulting – ensuring the insights the tool generates can actually be translated into operational practice.
The technical implementation was handled by Greenpocket GmbH, a Cologne-based company specializing in energy management and visualization software.
Rasmus Nielsen, project manager at Greenpocket, describes the development process: his company normally works with municipal utilities and is therefore used to quite different user groups and requirements, so starting with an extensive package of technical information that needed to be visualized and made usable was a new challenge. The key design decision was that the tool could not be too detailed or technically overwhelming – the entry point had to remain accessible for companies of all sizes.
After an intensive testing phase, the result is now available to the public.
How It Works: Five Steps to Orientation
The tool is freely accessible without registration at www.cluster-dekarbonisierung.de/tool. Its core is an interactive, five-stage analysis that guides users through the key dimensions of their process heat situation.
In the first step, users set up their company’s process heat streams, entering the relevant parameters for their heat and cooling flows: the medium used (such as water, steam, thermal oil, or air), inlet and outlet temperatures, and the heat flow or mass flow. This baseline data forms the foundation for all subsequent analyses and recommendations. Based on these inputs, the tool begins characterizing the process and making initial classifications, providing in-depth information on the specified process parameters – supported by illustrative material, tables, and graphics – to sharpen users’ understanding of their own situation.
At the heart of the application is the potential analysis: based on the data entered, the tool identifies which decarbonization options are fundamentally applicable to the given use case. These are presented in a structured overview, supplemented with explanations of possible approaches and links to further information. Typical options highlighted include electrification of heat supply, the use of waste heat from a company’s own processes or from neighboring industrial operations, the use of thermal storage, the use of photovoltaics to power electric heat generators, switching to alternative operating media, and smarter process control to reduce heat losses.
Matthias Heck describes the approach as a low-threshold way of modeling process heat streams, aimed at analyzing efficiency potential, quantifying heat demand and any heat surpluses, and deriving individualized transformation pathways for decarbonization from that data.
At the end of the analysis stands a summary of all results, which can also be downloaded as a PDF document. This allows the insights gained from using the tool to be fed directly into internal discussions, investment planning, or conversations with consultants and funding bodies.
A Practical Example
To make the tool’s functionality tangible, CDI presents a concrete use case: a mid-sized paper mill in Brandenburg with 50 employees and two paper machines.
The company faces a typical challenge: it wants to reduce its CO₂ emissions but has limited resources for a comprehensive transformation analysis. Its starting situation is technically well defined: both paper machines run on water and steam as the medium. Machine 1 has an inlet temperature of 245°C and an outlet temperature of 170°C, with a heat flow of 50,000 kW. Machine 2 operates with inlet temperatures of 210°C and outlet temperatures of 150°C, with a mass flow of 11.11 kg/s.
Sample Scenario (Source: CDI / Toni Kretschmer)
Sample Scenario (Source: CDI / Toni Kretschmer)
The decarbonization approach that emerges from these parameters, and which the tool identifies, is the in-house reuse of process heat: waste heat from operating Machine 1 could be used for downstream processes on Machine 2. This would not only save fossil primary energy but also increase the overall efficiency of the heat supply.
The example is instructive precisely because it shows how the tool can point to a concrete and economically attractive decarbonization pathway even without spectacular technological leaps – no hydrogen, no large-scale electrification. Using waste heat and optimizing existing processes are often the first and most worthwhile steps on the road to climate-neutral production. And these are exactly the options that smaller and medium-sized companies have often lacked systematic access to until now.
The tool doesn’t just help identify this approach – it also delivers an inventory analysis, an overview of further decarbonization options, and impulses for strategic development, all presented in a way that’s understandable for non-experts.
First Impressions from Use
The tool has been publicly accessible since February 19, 2026, and an initial, orienting look at the user interface leaves a consistently positive impression. The navigation is intuitively designed, the hamburger menu provides a quick overview of all functional areas, and the visual presentation of content – with graphics, explanatory tables, and direct links to further sources – makes it clear that considerable care went into usability.
Particularly noteworthy is the balance between simplicity and depth: the tool doesn’t overwhelm users with technical detail but makes such detail available as in-depth information where relevant. Those looking only for a first overview will find it; those wanting to dig deeper are invited to do so via links, illustrative materials, and further contacts.
For companies still at the beginning of their decarbonization considerations, the tool is likely to be a genuine source of orientation. It closes a gap that has been clearly felt in the consulting landscape until now: a low-threshold, free, vendor-independent entry point into analyzing one’s own process heat situation. Anyone who was unwilling or unable to hire a consultant previously had little opportunity to systematically engage with their own transformation options. The tool now offers exactly that entry point.
Positioning: What the Tool Can – and Cannot – Do
It’s important to calibrate expectations for the tool correctly. It is not a planning or simulation tool that replaces technical feasibility studies or detailed economic calculations. Nor is it a funding advisor or project-planning aid. In its own positioning, the tool is an orientation and strategy-finding instrument for the early phase of the transformation process.
From left to right: Matthias Heck, Cluster and Network Management at CDI; Dr.
Ricarda Tänzer-von Daake, Acting Director of CDI; and Rasmus Nielsen, Greenpocket (Source: CDI / Toni Kretschmer)
From left to right: Matthias Heck, Cluster and Network Management at CDI; Dr.
Ricarda Tänzer-von Daake, Acting Director of CDI; and Rasmus Nielsen, Greenpocket (Source: CDI / Toni Kretschmer)
This limitation is not a weakness but a deliberate design decision. Rasmus Nielsen of Greenpocket puts it plainly: the tool must not be too detailed, in order to make entry easy for everyone. Too much complexity in the user interface would have scared off exactly the target group CDI most urgently wants to reach: mid-sized companies that work with process heat daily but don’t maintain their own energy department and have so far had no systematic access to decarbonization options.
The tool’s real achievement, therefore, lies not in technical detail but in structuring information. It translates the expert knowledge gathered by 40 professionals in CDI’s innovation group into a form accessible to managing directors, energy managers, and technical staff alike. It hands users the right questions and guides them step by step to a first, well-founded picture of their transformation options.
Prof. Ragwitz describes this approach: the innovation group found that, of all things, the biggest energy consumer – process heat – still suffers from too little transparency around decarbonization options. The sheer variety of use cases makes clear that what’s needed is an instrument that systematically bundles the key options for reducing CO₂ emissions – which is exactly what the tool delivers.
The Next Step: From Orientation to Implementation
With the tool’s launch, CDI’s work in the field of process heat doesn’t end – it enters a new phase. Prof. Riedel has already outlined the next logical step: consulting. Because a tool, however valuable, can ultimately only provide the initial impetus. Implementing concrete transformation measures requires deeper analysis, individual planning, and in many cases external support. CDI sees itself as part of a support structure that accompanies companies along this path – from the first digital self-check through identifying suitable consulting and funding offers to networking with relevant players from science and industry. The cluster’s more than 130 partners are not merely a target group but also part of the solution offering.
For the industry, this is an encouraging signal. Decarbonizing process heat won’t be solved by a single technology, but through the interplay of many players, instruments, and measures. The new CDI tool is one building block in this larger structure – a digital entry point that enables companies to make well-founded decisions and thereby contribute to industrial transformation.
Become a Partner in the CDI Network
CDI connects industrial companies, research institutions, universities, and service providers from technology, policy, and administration. Partners benefit from a cross-industry expert network for industrial decarbonization, exclusive events, and intensive technology and knowledge transfer, and can help shape topics in innovation groups, initiate projects, and increase their organization’s visibility – e.g., through a competency profile on the CDI website, trade fair participation, and use of the “Partner in CDI” logo: www.cluster-dekarbonisierung.de
Partnership is free of charge.
Contact
Matthias Heck, Cluster- und Netzwerkmanagement CDI (Source: CDI / Toni Kretschmer)
Matthias Heck, Cluster- und Netzwerkmanagement CDI (Source: CDI / Toni Kretschmer)
Matthias Heck
Matthias.heck@cluster-dekarbonisierung.de
For more information, click here.
(As of March 2026)
