By Mary Connors and Marine Faber Perrio
The webinar, ‘Don’t waste the warmth: how industrial heat pumps can recover excess heat’, was hosted by the European Heat Pump Association, with experts gathered from three EU-funded projects, PUSH2HEAT, SPIRIT, METABUILD.
Heat and waste recovery is a cornerstone of a circular economy where resources are utilized efficiently and are key for industry to achieve decarbonization targets. During the webinar, the important role of industrial heat pumps in transforming industry was explained.
Heat pumps in action
Case studies were presented from one of the largest paper mills in Germany (Weissenborn), which had installed a high-temperature heat pump to recover waste heat, resulting in significant energy savings. We also heard about an innovative case study from Spain where waste heat was recovered from a district heating network via a high-temperature heat pump for steam production at a metal processing plant. This was the first high-temperature heat pump to produce steam in an industrial process in Spain.
The case from Spain is an example of industrial symbiosis, which was discussed during the webinar.
What is industrial symbiosis ?
Industrial symbiosis is a systems approach to waste management. It creates networks between different industries, and waste streams (like heat) from one industry become input for another. A mutually beneficial transaction that reduces waste and increases resource efficiency. Industrial symbiosis operates near the top of the waste hierarchy – waste is reused as an input for industrial processes, therefore reducing resource and material use, and ‘closing the loop’.
Industrial symbiosis has obvious benefits for industry as it enables companies to share by-products and reduce waste, however, the approach is not widely adopted due to barriers such as a lack of standardization. The RISER project is developing roadmaps for the standardization of industrial symbiosis as well as researching potential synergies between industries (find out more- https://risers-project.eu).
There is a growing demand to supply energy-intensive industries with waste and renewable heat. Waste heat has huge potential as a valuable resource for recycling heat for industry and to supply urban areas with heating sources. Experience from the RISER project also demonstrated how emerging sectors are adopting the industrial symbiosis approach. A case presented was that of a soap factory supplying waste heat to a newly built residential area in Ghent, Belgium.
In a nutshell
- The webinar showcased the impact that large heat pumps can have in various applications and how they can be adapted to meet the needs of industry.
- In addition, there is a need to adopt more innovative system approaches such as industrial symbiosis, that go beyond individual applications.
- Creating networks and synergies across sectors can exploit the potential of waste heat and ensure greater energy efficiency.
Did you know?
The REWITCH project is currently developing its own innovative heating and cooling solutions that will deploy large heat pumps to help industry make the most of waste heat, with four demo cases across Europe:
- Cartiera dell-Adda, Italy, a paper producer, is a replication site (and maybe a demo case). The project innovative efficient thermally-driven cooling and heating technologies for industrial processes, game-changers solutions, will be tested in CDA in Italy to unlock the potential of low-grade waste and renewable heat use (adsorption chiller).
- Browar Głubczyce, Poland, is a brewery that produces up to 50,000 m3/year of beer. RE-WITCH partners identified waste heat sources to be integrated with innovative solar thermal technologies to provide carbon-free industrial cooling. The mashing and boiling of beer wort is achieved by heating 35 m3 with process steam around 800 times/y. After each wort production process, the entire volume is cooled down from 98°C to 8°C fermentation temperature, which takes about 2.25 hours on average. The beer production process is well-established with unexploited waste heat that can be integrated with renewables to drive the RE-WITCH technologies at low temperature. BIM-based engineering of the demo plant will also be applied.
- In COVAP, Spain, simultaneous Heating & Cooling for the food industry is tested. Technologies demonstrated are hybrid absorption/compression heat pump (100kWc/250kWh)) and solar thermal (80-100m²). Input energy comes from biomass.
- In Miloil, Greece, cooling at different temperature levels will be organised, with the following technologies: dual evaporator/absorber chiller (40kW (10°C) & 400kW (20/25°C) and solar thermal (30kW).
Listen to the webinar recording or download the slides here https://www.ehpa.org/news-and-resources/news/dont-waste-the-warmth-how-industrial-heat-pumps-can-recover-excess-heat/
