Ruth MacGilp, Fashion Campaign Manager
2025.04.04
This Q&A explores electrification with renewable energy as a key solution for decarbonizing the fashion supply chain.
Dr. Ali Hasanbeigi, founder, CEO, and Research Director of Global Efficiency Intelligence, is a globally recognized expert in industrial decarbonization, energy efficiency, and sustainable manufacturing. Dr. Cecilia Springer, a Principal at Global Efficiency Intelligence, has over a decade of experience in energy policy and industrial decarbonization research.
For an introduction to electrification in the fashion industry, check out our previous blog post: Fossil Fuel Fashion has a New Clean Alternative.
Low-Carbon Thermal Energy Roadmap for the Textile Industry, a new report from Global Efficiency Intelligence and Apparel Impact Institute, offers a clear pathway for decarbonization in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, enabling fashion brands and manufacturers to make data-driven decisions. The report analyzes the potential of commercially available electrification technologies paired with renewable electricity to replace traditional coal boilers at textile processing facilities. This has the potential to reduce energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions and energy costs.
Overall, the research presents electrification as the most viable low-carbon solution for thermal energy in textile manufacturing. Meanwhile, alternative fuels such as biomass and fossil gas are highly unlikely to play a role in the long term journey to net zero due to significant social, economic and environmental concerns.
“Electrified technologies deliver significant efficiency improvements and lower overall energy use. When paired with renewable energy, these are the only long term, net zero compatible solutions. Our findings show that emissions reductions are achieved for all electrification technologies, pathways, and countries by 2035. In particular, heat pumps, due to their high levels of efficiency, deliver emissions and cost savings in every geography by 2030.”
— Ali Hasanbegi, Cecilia Springer & Dennis Wei, Low-Carbon Thermal Energy Roadmap for the Textile Industry, Global Efficiency Intelligence, 2025
Across all countries, electrification with steam generating heat pumps paired with renewable electricity — a zero carbon solution — offers greater potential energy savings and efficiency gains than any other coal alternative, including biomass, gas and even electric boilers. Additionally, heat pumps have significantly lower lifetime costs than fossil fuels, driven by their very high energy efficiency. While corporate renewable energy procurement challenges persist in Indonesia and Bangladesh, there are clear opportunities for heat pumps to produce near-term positive impacts for brands sourcing from China, India and Vietnam.
In terms of next steps on the journey to complete electrification by 2040, the report recommends that during the next 5 years, fashion brands should actively pursue electrification pilot projects in close collaboration with their suppliers, while advocating for improved access to renewable energy in regions where suppliers face challenges to increased adoption.
Implementation guidelines for electrification technologies in textile plants
To dive deeper into the report’s implications for fashion decarbonization, we spoke to the report’s authors, Dr. Ali Hasanbeigi and Dr. Cecilia Springer from Global Efficiency Intelligence.
Heat pumps emerge as the most effective low carbon thermal energy solution — but how exactly do heat pumps work in a textile factory context as an alternative to traditional coal boilers?
Over half of fuel use in a typical textile wet-processing facility goes to producing steam for process heating. Steam-generating heat pumps can replace coal-fired steam boilers. Unlike traditional coal-fired boilers, which burn fuel to generate heat, heat pumps operate by using electricity to transfer heat rather than producing heat through combustion. This fundamental difference dramatically improves energy efficiency and reduces emissions.
In a textile factory, the heat pumps extract low-grade heat from sources like ambient air, waste heat from machinery, or hot water discharged from processes. The heat pump compressor elevates the temperature of the captured heat to a useful level. Depending on steam temperature needs, multiple stages may be required. Heat pumps integrate with Mechanical Vapor Recompression (MVR) systems to reach steam temperatures up to 200°C. The upgraded heat is transferred to the required process via heat exchangers.
Can you explain why it’s so important to pair electrification with renewable energy procurement, and how you have defined different possible renewable energy scenarios?
Electrification technologies eliminate onsite emissions from fuel combustion, but there are still associated combustion-related emissions if the electricity supply comes from a carbon-intensive grid, such as in countries like China, Indonesia, and India that have coal-intensive grid electricity mixes. Electrification with electric boilers typically increases energy efficiency of heating by about 20%, but this is not enough to reduce net emissions relative to coal-fired boilers if the grid is highly carbon-intensive.
Therefore, pairing electrification with directly procured renewable electricity can lead to immediate emissions reductions and bypass the grid carbon intensity issue. Heat pumps, on the other hand, can double or even triple efficiency, so they can still lead to emissions reductions even when using carbon-intensive grid electricity. It is also important to note that countries’ grids are decarbonizing over time on the path to net zero.
Nevertheless, renewable energy procurement can further lower emissions and in some cases, electricity costs. In our study, we assumed that a typical textile facility will have various options to procure renewable electricity (RE) by 2030. Countries like China, India, and Vietnam already have mechanisms for corporate RE procurement, and these options will continue to expand over the next few years. Therefore, we defined a Baseline Grid Plus RE Procurement scenario, where a typical textile facility procures a baseline and growing share of RE for its electricity supply over time (with the rest coming from the grid), and an Ambitious scenario with a higher and growing share of RE over time. Given how robust corporate RE procurement markets are in China, India, and Vietnam, under the Ambitious scenario for those countries, we assume that a single, ambitious textile facility could procure 100% RE for its electrified heating needs.
China and India have been identified as the countries with the best near-term potential for electrification — why is this, and what can brands sourcing from more challenging geographies do to accelerate progress?
Of the five countries we analyzed, China and India show strong near-term potential for industrial electrification due to their expanding renewable energy capacity, improved corporate RE procurement mechanisms, and supportive policy frameworks. The ongoing expansion of China’s renewable energy market and improvements in power trading mechanisms are expected to improve conditions for industrial electrification. In India, renewable energy capacity is growing rapidly, with 500 GW of new renewable capacity targeted by 2030. India’s corporate PPA markets are well-established and offer textile manufacturers access to lower-cost renewable electricity.
For brands sourcing from countries with more challenging conditions for electrification, we recommend the following actions:
- Explore available RE procurement mechanisms and work together to advocate with textile manufacturers for future expansion of mechanisms and regulatory frameworks for corporate RE procurement (e.g. incentives, power market reforms, and favorable electricity rate structures that enable electrification projects).
- Invest in energy efficiency and thermal load reduction as a necessary first step to pave the way for electrification.
- Encourage manufacturers to explore innovative financing models for electrification, such as brand premiums, development financing, energy/heat-as-a-service models, and joint funding for electrification projects.
You define biomass as a potential low-carbon solution in the near term, with important caveats about identifying sustainability risks — but what are the challenges in the long term, and how can brands prevent locking in a false solution?
The primary concern is the limited availability of sustainable biomass supply in the longer term, which creates a risk of turning to unsustainable biomass sources when the sustainable sources run out. Burning unsustainable sources, particularly woody biomass and energy crops, in biomass boilers can result in increased CO₂ emissions, deforestation, and reputational risks. Sustainable biomass supply from agricultural waste is inherently limited by agricultural production cycles, seasonal weather conditions, area of cultivated land, etc. If biomass demand significantly increases as many textile plants try to use sustainable biomass, supply constraints may drive costs up and create logistical challenges. Therefore, long-term and large-scale biomass adoption is likely infeasible.
Although levelized cost calculations show heat pumps offer greater savings over time than any other technology, upfront capital costs can still be a barrier for textile manufacturers. What should brands be doing to support this financial investment?
Heat pumps have high equipment and installation costs. There are several financing mechanisms that brands can help manufacturers access.
Brands can help manufacturers connect with venture capital and private equity firms that can offer funding and strategic expertise. Brands can also co-invest directly in heat pump projects within their supply chains, helping producers afford installations without bearing the full financial burden.
Additionally, brands may offer price premiums to facilities adopting low-carbon heating technologies to help offset increased operating costs. Sustainability-linked loans, which lower interest rates for companies that meet emissions reduction targets, and corporate guarantees, where brands help secure financing for their suppliers, provide additional ways to reduce risk and support investment in heat pumps.
Lastly, brands can help manufacturers connect with companies that provide heat-as-a-service models (similar to the ESCO models that have demonstrated success in China and India), which shift capital costs to a third-party provider, who funds, installs, and maintains the heat pump system, while the manufacturer pays for the heat delivered rather than the equipment itself.
Overall, the report highlights that electrification can be both environmentally and economically viable in the near term. However, to enable this, brands need to start driving change immediately by advocating for improved renewable energy policies, publishing credible electrification strategies, and investing in technical and financial support for suppliers. Between 2025 and 2030, the report recommends that brands provide funding to pilot heat pump projects, particularly in China and India where renewable energy is most widely available.
To help suppliers themselves make informed decisions about investing in electrification, the report presents a decision-tree for selecting the most suitable low-carbon solutions:
To find out more, you can read Low-Carbon Thermal Energy Roadmap for the Textile Industry and its accompanying primer, Low-Carbon Thermal Energy Technologies for The Textile Industry. You can also read our previous blog on this topic, Fossil Fuel Fashion has a New Clean Alternative.
