Heating, cooling and heat reuse for industrial processes
Air conditioning in industrial processes is essential to ensure production quality and business continuity. With a focus on efficiency and heat reuse, we optimise the use of energy flows and reduce consumption in a smart way.
Discover HiRef's solutions in this field.
Air conditioning in industrial processes is essential to ensure production quality and business continuity. With a focus on efficiency and heat reuse, we optimise the use of energy flows and reduce consumption in a smart way.
Discover HiRef's solutions in this field.
Heat pumps for a multitude of application domains
Industrial air conditioning and heat recovery are critical for efficiency and environmental sustainability
In all production sectors, adequate refrigeration helps to improve the stability of the process and the products handled. In particular, food and beverages, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and electronics are among the top industries that require constant and highly precise control of thermo-hygrometric conditions in environments to ensure production performance and high quality processing. Indeed, in specific stages, low temperatures, together with humidity control, are essential to prevent the transmission of bacteria and unwanted chemical reactions or the deterioration of materials used in the industrial process.
However, the entire industrial sector is highly energy-consuming, responsible for around 25% of final energy consumption and more than 50 % of carbon dioxide emissions in Europe. For this reason, generating cold or heat is not enough and increasingly, today and in every production field, the prevailing trend is to manage the need for cooling on the one hand and heating on the other with a single system that manages both energy flows. Heat pumps are the ideal solution to meet both requirements at the same time, making them an even more profitable investment (lower OPEX) for any manufacturing business.
When to choose an industrial heat pump?
Heat recovery in industrial processes
Waste heat from industrial processes and heating are two of the biggest sources of energy loss for a company.
Recovering waste heat offers the opportunity to increase energy efficiency, thus reducing the company's environmental impact, as well as keeping energy consumption of production sites under control. It is also a strategy for reaching the European energy saving targets set for 2030.Thanks to HiRef heat pumps, it is possible to draw energy from heat otherwise wasted in the form of unused flows and to reuse it valuably to produce thermal or cooling energy, at different temperature levels.
The heat source can be found in sewers wastewater or waste water from industrial processes (e.g. in moulding processes), water which has a temperature of 30 to 45° and which is recovered to produce hot water for another process within the building or, for example, for district heating. This reduces energy costs in terms of fossil fuel used and CO2 emissions to generate heat.
The next step?
HiRef's R&D is already focused on future trends, including meeting the entire industrial energy demand with ultra-high temperature heat pumps capable of producing hot water above 120°C.
District heating for industrial and residential districts
Another situation where industrial heat pumps are playing a leading role in reducing the use of fossil fuels is district heating.
Heat pumps can fully replace fossil fuel systems by using a natural source as the heat source. This is possible in contexts where the district heating network is located near a lake, a river, or has groundwater availability. A very high temperature heat pump, such as our KVW, is able to produce water at high temperatures even with very cold source water.
Thanks to this feature, heat pumps can be integrated into the district heating circuits even in replacement of traditional heat generators.
Smart grid
In industrial and urbanised districts, even a data centre in the vicinity or an energy hub can become a source of heat to be made available to the local grid. Smart grids are created with a view to greater integration of production from different energy sources in order to achieve precise decarbonisation and sustainable development goals.
In this context, heat pumps provide a way to raise the heat dissipation of a data centre or industry plant to the most useful temperature level, up to 90°C, by feeding heat into the district heating network, which will then be distributed between, for example, sports halls, hospitals, dry cleaners, vertical farms, residential buildings and neighbourhoods.
Redevelopment or expansion of existing plants
Heat pumps and cogeneration
In a production site, heat pumps can be integrated into an existing heating system, e.g. a combustion boiler, by recovering thermal power and electrical energy from the cogeneration unit, using it as a source. Thus, the heat generated by the unit is not wasted, instead it is fed into the heating network, and the building is supplied with electricity, heat and hot water almost without loss, allowing the simultaneous production of electricity, heating and cooling energy.
At the same time, heat pumps may also be chosen to extend the capabilities of an existing cogeneration network to add thermal energy more efficiently than a fossil-fuel cogeneration unit.
Where is CHP worthwhile?
This type of system is suitable from industry to hospitals, from the service sector to sports centres, for both heating and process heat.
Its main advantages are:
- upgrading or expanding existing sites and refrigeration plants
- increase energy independence by reducing supply costs
- ensure continuity of electricity, heat and refrigeration supply
- decrease environmental impact by reducing CO2 emissions
HiNode is an air conditioning supervision and management system developed by HiRef.
Advanced control and management
Meshes with all HiRef and third-party machines, optimizing their operation: it ensures the performance forecast at the analysis stage, predicts failures and calculates performance decline over time to ensure prompt action and, therefore, continuity of service for the user.
The HiNode system can be sized according to the number of devices to be controlled. Both software and functions can be customised.