BEYOND: Federico II Leads the European Project for More Efficient and Sustainable Heat Pumps

Heat pumps have become one of the cornerstones of Europe’s energy transition. Unlike traditional systems, they do not produce heat by burning fuel, but rather transfer thermal energy from an external source—air, water, or the ground—to the spaces to be heated or cooled using electricity and refrigerants. Thanks to their high efficiency and low CO₂ emissions, their use is steadily growing in both the residential and automotive sectors.

However, to maintain high performance over time, it is necessary to promptly detect even the slightest anomalies—which are often invisible to traditional monitoring tools and lead to a gradual increase in energy consumption.

BEYOND, the European project coordinated by Professor Alfonso William Mauro of the University of Naples Federico II in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Valencia, was created to address this need. Funded by the European Innovation Council with an investment of 1.25 million euros as part of the Pathfinder Clean and Efficient Cooling program, the project began in 2024 and will conclude in 2028 with the goal of developing a new generation of smart tools for diagnosing heat pumps, guiding the research all the way to industrial applications.

BEYOND’s innovation lies in integrating physical models and artificial intelligence to detect not only the presence of a fault but also its nature and severity, even when multiple anomalies occur simultaneously. To achieve this, the project uses so-called “digital twins”—virtual models of heat pumps capable of simulating millions of possible operating conditions and comparing them with data collected by sensors installed on the systems. This approach enables more effective maintenance planning, reduces energy waste, and extends the useful life of the equipment.

The research draws on multidisciplinary expertise from Federico II. The Department of Industrial Engineering, led by Professor
Nicola Bianco, where the Refrigeration Engineering group, coordinated by Professor Alfonso William Mauro, develops thermodynamic models that describe the behavior of heat pumps even in the presence of anomalies; the Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, headed by Professor Fabio Villone, which, through the Software Quality and Intelligent Data-driven Systems (SQuIDS)—coordinated by Professors Sergio Di Martino, Luigi Libero, and Lucio Starace— develops the artificial intelligence algorithms and software platforms necessary to process data quickly and reliably; the Center for Advanced Metrology Services (CESMA), led by Professor Domenico Accardo at the San Giovanni a Teduccio campus, supports the technology transfer process to the market.

In fact, the project looks beyond scientific research. Among its objectives are the filing of an international patent and the establishment of an academic spin-off that can bring this technology to market, offering advanced services for the monitoring and predictive maintenance of systems. Potential applications extend not only to the residential sector but also to the automotive industry and, more generally, to all systems that use heat pumps.