Industrial process heating equipment and solutions specialist Babcock Wanson UK is pleased to be a founding member of Electrify Industry, a new body representing businesses seeking to decarbonise the UK’s industrial base through electrification.
Electrify Industry, powered by Make UK – the manufacturers’ organisation – is working with innovators to create a voice to ensure that the right policy is developed for electrification, which is considered by many to be the most efficient option to decarbonise the UK industrial sector and enable it to continue to grow. Electrify Industry’s report, A programme for growth in the 21st century, states: “UK industry needs a healthy mix of decarbonisation options to make net zero work – presently this is far from reality. A healthy energy market that embraces electrification and facilitates real decarbonisation technology choices is necessary.”
A founding member of Electrify Industry and a leading light in developing decarbonised products and services for boiler houses, Babcock Wanson is well placed to contribute to Electrify Industry’s campaigning work. Babcock Wanson Group has developed a comprehensive range of electric powered industrial process heating systems, including steam generators and thermal fluid heaters. It recently announced the building of a substantial new plant in Nérac, France, which will not only enable the Group to increase overall production capacity, but also the ability to respond to the growing demands for decarbonised solutions through the development and expansion of electric and electrode boilers, oxy-combustion, and hydrogen-designed boilers.
At the 14th European Conference on Industrial Furnaces & Boilers this year, Cecilia Sebastiani, Product Technology & Innovation Manager at Babcock Wanson Group, outlined the obstacles and challenges for decarbonising industrial thermal engineering. “Whilst it is comparatively easier to mitigate CO2 emissions from light industry due to lower temperature requirements” she stated, “cost and infrastructure are the main barriers to electrification. However, heavy industry is far more challenging to decarbonise as low carbon technologies for many high temperature processes are still under development or are too expensive, plus industrial assets have long lifetimes and are infrequently replaced.” In line with Electrify Industry, she stresses the need for policy support to promote the electrification of processes in heavy industry.
Launched in March 2025 at the Houses of Parlement, Electrify Industry has presented a set of six starting recommendations to move the country towards electrification, which include reducing electricity costs and provision for capital outlay, optimising and growing grid connectivity, grow the supply chain around electrification, invest in skills and R&D.
For information on Electrify Industry, go to www.makeuk.org/insights/reports/electrify-industry. For more information on Babcock Wanson, please visit www.babcock-wanson.com, or contact the company on 020 8953 7111 or [email protected].
