Sectors and processes

Relevant sectors

Industrial heat pumps are generally suited for a wide range of industries and processes, especially when certain criteria are met:

• Availability of heat source at high temperature
• High number of operating hours
• Access to electricity at low cost

Heat demands at temperature levels below 90-100 °C may be covered with commercially available equipment. This project aims at developing competitive technologies for providing heat at higher temperature levels of up to 200 °C, while even higher temperatures may be technically achievable by future developments.

The current project focuses on applications in the food sector as this sector meets the above mentioned requirements, and it is typically focused on sustainable solutions.

The developed solutions are, however, also applicable to applications in other sectors and processes, e.g. pulp and paper, chemicals, oil and gas and others.

Existing plants and new equipment

High-temperature heat pumps can be implemented in a variety of applications, including existing plants and novel process equipment. Both the requirements and boundary conditions as well as the potentials may vary considerably depending on the application.

The integration into existing plants requires sophisticated methods for reaching optimal results as each existing plant has its peculiarities that need to be considered. In turn, there is a huge potential in developing both the technologies and the integration methods for providing the possibility to convert existing plants to heat pump based process heat supply.

In addition to the implementation in existing plants, industrial heat pumps may be integrated into novel process equipment as well. This gives a higher degree of freedom with respect to the possible modifications of the process parameters and the process equipment, enabling highest performances. The project considers among others the integration into equipment for drying processes.