High-temperature heat pumps for industry

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A new EU-funded project looks at barriers to the deployment of heat pump technologies for heat upgrades in the industrial sector. The Push2Heat project started in October and will have a duration of four years.

“The industry's potential for industrial decarbonization through high-temperature heat pumps is huge. For applications of up to 200 C, heat pumps could potentially deliver 730 TWh per year – which is 37% of the process heat required by European industry,” said Maider Epelde, the coordinator of the project at Spain's Tecnalia R&D center. “This could potentially avoid 146 metric tons of CO2 emissions per year.”

The market for high-temperate heat pumps for industrial applications is still limited because “their size needs to be scaled up and their cost … reduced, notably by improving their performance,” according to the project description. The project will scale up four heat-upgrade technologies and assess the related difficulties and solutions.

The systems will have a full-scale net rated thermal input of 0.5 MWth to 10 MWth and will supply industrial processes with heat in the range of 90 C to 160 C. The heat will be extracted from renewable heat sources like solar thermal, as well as ambient heat or industrial waste heat. The technologies will be demonstrated in four selected industrial sites from the food, paper, and chemical industry sectors.

Push2Heat will also demonstrate which business models can help push the use of heat upgrade systems. Its final goal is to increase the market potential of waste heat valorization.

The project consortium includes technology manufacturers, industrial end users, business-oriented companies, research entities, universities, and representatives of the heat pump industry.

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