Maximising the recovery of low grade heat: An integrated heat integration framework incorporating heat pump intervention for simple and complex factories

J.H. Miah, A. Griffiths, R. McNeill, I. Poonaji, R. Martin, A. Leiser, S. Morse, A. Yang and J. Sadhukhan

Applied Energy, 2015, vol. 160, issue C, 172-184

Abstract: The recovery of heat has long been a key measure to improving energy efficiency and maximising the heat recovery of factories by Pinch analysis. However, a substantial amount of research has been dedicated to conventional heat integration where low grade heat is often ignored. Despite this, the sustainability challenges facing the process manufacturing community are turning interest on low grade energy recovery systems to further advance energy efficiency by technological interventions such as heat pumps. This paper presents a novel heat integration framework incorporating technological interventions for both simple and complex factories to evaluate all possible heat integration opportunities including low grade and waste heat. The key features of the framework include the role of heat pumps to upgrade heat which can significantly enhance energy efficiency; the selection process of heat pump designs which was aided by the development of ‘Heat Pump Thresholds’ to decide if heat pump designs are cost-competitive with steam generation combustion boiler; a decision making procedure to select process or utility heat integration in complex and diverse factories; and additional stream classifications to identify and separate streams that can be practically integrated. The application of the framework at a modified confectionery factory has yielded four options capable of delivering a total energy reduction of about 32% with an economic payback period of about 5years. In comparison, conventional direct and/or indirect heat integration without heat pumps showed an energy reduction potential of only 3.7–4.3%. Despite the long payback, the role of heat pumps combined with an integrated search by direct and indirect heat exchange from zonal to factory level can provide the maximum heat recovery. The framework has the potential to be applied across the process manufacturing community to inform longer-term energy integration strategies.

Keywords: Heat pump; Low grade heat; Energy efficiency; Pinch analysis; Food factory; Food industry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261915011022
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:160:y:2015:i:c:p:172-184

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.09.032

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().