Excess heat recovery: An invisible energy resource for the Swiss industry sector

M. Jibran S. Zuberi, Frédéric Bless, Jonathan Chambers, Cordin Arpagaus, Stefan S. Bertsch and Martin K. Patel

Applied Energy, 2018, vol. 228, issue C, 390-408

Abstract: Typically, 70% of the total final energy demand in the industry sector is used for process heat. A substantial share of this energy could be provided by excess heat recovery. This study evaluates the techno-economic excess heat recovery potential in the Swiss industry through exergy and energy analysis and provides an overview of the spatial distribution of the potential by temperature level. The specific costs and payback periods of excess heat recovery are analyzed by conventional and new measures, as well as the overall costs of sector-wide excess heat recovery. The overall mean energy and exergy efficiencies of the Swiss industry sector are estimated to be 61% and 27%, respectively. The total amount of potentially recoverable excess heat is estimated at 14 PJ per year, i.e. 12% of the total final energy and 24% of the total process heat demand of Swiss industry in 2016. However, the economic potential amounts to only 5% and 10% if a payback period of 3 and 4 years is assumed, respectively. Long payback times of heat recovery measures and a high percentage of low-quality and small heat streams were the most important barriers to energy efficiency improvement in Swiss industry. Furthermore, 30–40% of the steam demand in Swiss industry could be provided from excess heat in an economically viable manner, if all excess heat available at temperatures below 80 °C was utilized for steam generation using low pressure evaporation, vapor compression, and high temperature heat pump techniques. The results and the data provided in this study can be adapted to other regions of the world and can serve as a base for conducting more comprehensive analyses and formulating more effective policies.

Keywords: Excess heat recovery; Energy and exergy efficiency; Excess heat maps; Specific costs; Industry; Switzerland (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261918309395
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:228:y:2018:i:c:p:390-408

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.2018.06.070

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 ().