Industrial Heat Pumps: Electrifying Industry’s Process Heat Supply
Industrial heat pumps (IHPs) are a demonstrated solution for efficiently recovering, upgrading, and supplying process heat. Adoption of IHPs in the U.S. has been limited due to a number of factors -including relatively low natural gas prices. Yet, prior studies showed that moderate deployment of IHPs in manufacturing could save 270-550 trillion Btu/year (IEA Annex 21 1994) while simultaneously electrifying select industrial processes. IHP technology has advanced in the past 20 years with, among other developments, low environmental impact refrigerants that can operate at higher delivery temperatures (e.g., 160 oC or 320 oF).
This presentation will describe the economics and energy savings of several prototypical IHP applications in varied sectors (chemicals, paper and food processing). The presentation will summarize where IHPs make the most sense in comparison to other more common heat and power supply utility choices, e.g., boilers, process heat integration, CHP, etc.
Finally, an overview of how state-of-the-art IHP technologies can be extended to more industrial processes along a description of possible energy policies and incentives. Possible future initiatives that could help accelerate IHP market adoption with more favorable economics and lower implementation hurdles also will be presented.
Speaker Bio
Paul Scheihing is Principal of 50001 Strategies LLC; a company which assists manufacturers and commercial companies to create and deploy clean industrial energy strategies which integrates systematic energy management within business plans using the ISO 50001 energy management standard.
Mr. Scheihing spent 30 years at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office partnering with US industry on energy efficiency. He led DOE’s Superior Energy Performance program. He also developed a variety of energy efficiency programs at DOE, including the DOE industrial heat pump R&D program, Motor Challenge and Save Energy Now programs.
Mr. Scheihing has a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Connecticut and a MSME from Drexel University. Paul won the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) Champion for Industry in Energy Efficiency in 2013.