As foreseen in Portuguese strategic documents such as the National Energy and Emissions Plan (NECP), industrial sectors must devise their specific roadmaps to reach deep decarbonisation levels by 2050. In the past few years, a Call financed by the European Recovery and Resilience Program (RRP) resulted in 15 sector decarbonisation roadmaps, including cement, glass, agroindustry, textiles, machinery, plastics, wood products and others.

As a part of the periodic efforts to update national-level plans such as the NECP and the National Strategy for Hydrogen (EN-H2), a high-level analysis was performed of these RRP decarbonisation roadmaps. The analysis focused on the roles foreseen for renewable electricity and for renewable gases – including bio-methane but especially renewable hydrogen from electrolysis and e-methane obtained from methanation of captured carbon dioxide with renewable hydrogen.

As expected, the 'partial' industrial sector decarbonisation roadmaps were found to require alignment with the national level approach. Although the roadmaps were found to be aligned regarding the phase-out of fossil fuels such as coal, fuel-oil and LPG, different assumptions were made about electrification (already expected to be sector-specific), the level of self-consumption of PV electricity, use of hydrogen, and the pathway of grid electricity renewable origin share and emissions. Even more widely diverging views were presented about the decarbonisation strategy and the evolution of the mix of gases present in the gas network. While in some cases only a minor presence of biomethane and hydrogen in the blend was assumed, in other cases the amounts foreseen were clearly overestimated considering the expected availability of these renewable gases at a national level.

As part of the 2026 update of the 'carbon-neutrality in the energy sector by 2050' scenario (CN50), developed by the Directorate-General of Energy and Geology, an integrated view of the decarbonisation pathways of industrial sectors was developed. It takes into account not only the requirements of renewable electricity and gases for industry but also for other sectors such as transportation. In certain cases, it provides a significantly different picture of the industrial sectors' decarbonisation trajectories from the one offered by the respective decarbonisation roadmaps.