Industrial Heat Pumps for Decarbonizing Steam-Heat Pumps in Industry
Donald E. McConnell
Principal Consultant, Energy and Heat Transfer
DuPont
ABSTRACT
Heat pumps are receiving new interest as a means to decarbonize energy use in residential, business and industry use, due to the eventual use of renewably produced electricity to power them and because of the characteristic of mechanical vapor recompression heat pumps having a Coefficient of Performance greater than 1. Specifically, the application of heat pumps to make steam in industry has been touted as the next application area for heat pumps.
This presentation will present an assessment and case study of the application of heat pumps to an industrial process to make low pressure steam from a user’s perspective. It will be shown that even in the United States without significant carbon taxes an industrial heat pump can save significant OPEX. Key from the user’s point of view is that the economics are acceptable. This presentation will make the case that use of advanced heat transfer surfaces will be incumbent to reduce the lift and power of the heat pump compressor. Comoditization of industrial heat pumps will likely result in reduction in capital costs making larger penetration of heat pumps for industry possible.