About the authorIndustrial Heat Pumps
I usually observe the surroundings and watch for the color change of the trees during this time of the year. As I was driving back from a project this last week I happened to notice something I thought was slightly ironic. At one bend in the highway there were patches of steam over the horizon. These are certainly more visible during this time of year with cooler ambient weather conditions. As I drove closer to the facility the source of the steam became apparent.
The steam was actually from two distinct sources: a smokestack and a large bank of cooling towers. Here was a perfect example of wasted energy. Energy flowing up the smokestack was the result of energy consumed for generating heat or power, while the cooling towers were rejecting heat from some process directly to the atmosphere. This is all too often seen. Putting this into context with an industrial refrigeration system we have heat energy being moved from one source to another location where the rejected heat is not objectionable.
If we were to reverse these roles, we would be transferring heat energy from a source where excess heat is available to another location where the recovered/transferred heat energy would be beneficial to the overall process. That perfectly describes a heat pump and illustrates how operating issues may be utilized for reducing energy!
Heat pumps are essentially refrigeration systems that recover heat by moving energy in a useful and beneficial direction.
One of the most intriguing applications of heat recovery is to utilize common industrial refrigeration components and equipment to achieve this useful transfer of energy. Low grade energy recovery has two common issues; what I call quantity and quality. Herein after referred to as temperature and BTU’s (British Thermal Units). These two constraints need to be balanced within the heat recovery process. Bluntly put, you need high quality heat to achieve the final process temperature and a sufficient quantity of heat energy (BTU’s) to provide the desired heating effect for the process.
It remains to be seen though whether this technology ever catches on here in the US. Since these systems are not catalog ready for purchase and the perception that this is new and unproven technology, many shy away from utilizing this branch of industrial refrigeration technology. Again from a slightly ironic view point, this is a simple application problem not unlike designing any other custom refrigeration system. For further reading this may be helpful.
Tags: energy conservation, energy reduction, facility operations, heat recovery, industrial refrigeration, operating issues, System design
