Recovering Lost Energy: Waste Heat
Traditional fossil-fuel combustion, which currently provides most onsite industrial energy, tends to transfer heat to the environment and leads to a lot of wasted energy. Waste heat recovery is the process of capturing and reusing heat that would otherwise be lost.
This heat can come from various industrial processes, such as hot exhaust gases, cooling water or heat lost from equipment surfaces. By recovering this waste heat, industries can improve energy efficiency, reduce energy costs and lower CO2 emissions.
Heat Pump: The heat pump removes energy from the heat source and uses it to maintain heat recovery loop temperatures.
Heat Recovery Loop: The main hot water loop circulates hundreds of gallons through insulated steel pipe.
While equipment costs and forecasted energy savings play critical roles in determining a waste-heat recovery project’s viability, state and federal policies can also have substantial impacts.
Heat Pump: The heat pump removes energy from the heat source and uses it to maintain heat recovery loop temperatures.
While equipment costs and forecasted energy savings play critical roles in determining a waste-heat recovery project’s viability, state and federal policies can also have substantial impacts.
About one-third of the states that have binding renewable portfolio standards include waste-heat to power (WHP) as a qualifying source: Connecticut, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Vermont and Colorado.
In Colorado, CDM Smith designed a first-of-its kind waste heat recovery system that reuses energy from treated effluent discharged at a nearby wastewater treatment facility (WWTF) to heat pools. This system has the potential to eventually provide heat to additional buildings in the town core. As an expandable system, additional sources of heat such as solar thermal can be added to the system, or it can accommodate additional uses such as heating other buildings.
Numerous technologies are commercially available for waste heat recovery, and many industrial facilities have upgraded or are improving their energy productivity by installing them. CDM Smith has been incorporating innovative heat recovery options into district-level heat projects for decades. Reach out for more information on the potential benefits of waste-heat recovery.