Frequently Asked Questions
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Here are some of the most commonly asked questions about working with Process Energy.
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FAQ's
What is heat recovery?
Waste heat is produced as a by-product of a machine or process that does work and uses energy, such as natural gas or electricity. All processes give off some waste heat as a function of their efficiency. Examples include stack losses in boilers and burner flues, heat rejected by radiators or condensers into cooling towers and radiant heat from hot surfaces.
In most cases this heat is simply lost to atmosphere, but with the right solutions it can be captured and transferred to another process. By using recovered heat, an industrial manufacturing site can significantly lower the demand for gas or electricity, reducing operating costs and the environmental impact for their production site. The potential rewards are not to be underestimated, according to one report the total global value of recovering waste heat totals €140 Billion!
What are the benefits of heat recovery?
- Cost Reduction – By re-using waste heat the overall demand on energy is reduced, delivering large reductions in operating costs. An example of this is at a British bakery, producing hot exhaust at 280 C from its oven. Process Energy are able to recover heat for reuse in the process, reusing over 2 million kWh/yr, over £100,000/yr saving.
- Environmental Benefits – Process optimisation and energy efficiency projects can play a significant part in the overall environmental impact with heat recovery playing a major role in achieving this. Depending on the industry, thermal energy can represent over 50% of total energy usage. Process optimisation and recovering heat has a massive impact on your journey towards Net Zero.
Process Energy were able to help a non-woven textile manufacturing plant reduce their carbon emissions by 1,000 tons CO2e/year. Find out more here. - System Optimisation – Process Optimisation helps streamline processes, increases efficiency and helps in delivering a reduction in overall energy use. By driving efficiency, upgrading and consuming less energy it can extend the useful life of existing plant and processes postponing capital investment for many years.
- Energy Security – Consuming less energy reduces a companies risk to rising fuel prices and any carbon taxation. Energy from waste heat recovery as is essentially free as the business has already paid for it. Reducing the amount of energy consumed not only saves money directly but buffers the business from fluctuations in energy markets and prices.
- Sustainable Supply Chain – Customers at all levels are demanding a reduction in the environmental impact that products have. Demonstrating positive practical actions for decarbonisation are essential for today’s manufacturing businesses. Through process optimisation and heat recovery, emissions in scopes 1, 2 and 3 will be reduced, enabling a business to reduce its own impact and helping their customers to reduce their scope 3 emissions. Many pre-contract assessments include a review of sustainable practices prior to doing business.
- Increased Capacity – Many sites are currently at or close to the limit of supply of energy from the grid, whether gas or electric. By becoming more energy efficient and reducing overall usage, you can free up extra capacity on site, allowing for expansion or added capacity. A recent evaluation of a print works demonstrated a potential reduction of 68% in natural gas use and a 45% reduction in electricity use. As they were nearing the limit of available energy they were able to access from the grid, this reduction allows far greater flexibility during production.
Decarbonising my process can feel daunting, where do I start?
Process Energy have developed a 5-step process that considers every aspect of energy reduction, heat recovery and decarbonisation with you, specific for your site and your needs. By working through our process, we ensure you see maximum savings, implement the best solutions for you and decarbonise your process as thoroughly as possible. Process Energy provide the knowledge and contracting services, to deliver the process change and results.
Benchmarking – The first step Process Energy take with any site is to measure and understand your systems and how they work and where energy is consumed, providing data to support informed and timely choices. This allows us to make an accurate evaluation of the opportunities available and deliver a solution with the largest benefits.
Optimising your process – to get the best performance and product from existing equipment, whether modifying, upgrading, servicing, repairing, or re-commissioning.
Heat Reduction, Recovery and Reuse – to save energy by capturing thermal heat energy and reusing the energy within the immediate plant.
Energy Systems Integration – to use and manage heat and energy use up or down stream in a process or across the whole Factory.
Fuel Switching and Decarbonisation Road Mapping – to consider what can be delivered with immediate benefit and actions and opportunities that hold potential in the future.
Does my industry have opportunities for energy saving, and which technologies actually work?
Practically every industry has opportunity for energy saving and decarbonisation of process heating systems. Heat recovery is most possible where thermal equipment such as ovens, dryer, and thermal oxidisers are implemented. The largest savings are seen for continuous equipment although savings and solutions can be found for batch processes as well.
Typical industries include:
- Food & drink manufacturing
- Textiles – through to non-wovens
- Paper & pulp
- Metals
- Surface coating
- Environmental abatement
Thermal processes suitable for recovery
- Ovens
- Dryers
- Thermal oxidisers
- CHP engines
- Boiler flues
- Air compressors
If your process or industry is not listed, give us a call, and explore potential opportunities.
How can I evaluate the opportunity for heat recovery at my site?
The savings made from heat recovery depend on two fundamental factors;
- How much heat is available and the amount that can be recovered?
- Where can it be used in the factory?
Firstly, Process Energy will discuss your processes and identify where energy saving opportunities are. We then measure the waste heat being discharged to quantify the potential. We will also identify potential uses of waste heat and look at how recovered heat can be reused.
How much heat can be recovered depends on the individual process and associated equipment.
Many processes operate in different or varying conditions. This could be because the product specification over years has changed, or equipment has been subject to upgrades or refurbishments. Industrial ovens and dryers are heavily dependent on the product made and any other chemicals such as combustion gases or solvents.
The way to address this high diversity is to carry out an initial site assessment of energy and heat emitters against the process’s consumers. Process Energy measure available heat during normal production to produce real data, which can then be used to assess the opportunity.
Every factory will have many thermal processes and using our knowledge and experience we will be able to identify a number of options to reuse waste heat.
Recovered energy can be input into a range of thermal transfer fluids, including unpressurised hot water, pressurised hot water, steam, various thermal oil fluids or even hot air.
Ancillary techniques, such as the use of heat pumps may form part of our solutions. If there is a large quantity of thermal energy, then we can consider electrical power generation, but this is usually financially viable at higher levels.
Where can heat be reused?
Recovered heat can either be re-used as part of the process it was derived from or elsewhere throughout the plant.
A common application to re-use heat on the same process is to use exhaust gas to pre-heat burner combustion air, although care is needed to ensure the burners are capable of working with higher temperature input air.
If there is no possibility of re-using on the same process, then we can look across the entire factory for potential users of heat.
Typical applications include pre-heating return flow prior to a hot water boiler water, steam boiler hot well heating, HVAC applications, washdown water, process wash and degreasing tanks, kitchen feeds and handwash.
At higher temperatures either steam or thermal oil heat media may be used which opens up further opportunities.
Typical users of heat:
- Return into the same process, e.g. pre-heating combustion air
- Hot water boilers
- HVAC systems
- Washing plants
- Hot mixing
What payback can I expect?
Every business has its own capital ROI criteria and any payback consideration needs to be taken on a case-by-case basis. Increasingly, companies are changing the way they look at environmental investment returns to include value of carbon savings and progress in sustainability.
Process Energy will look at the amount of energy available, where it can be used, operating conditions and hours and the cost of energy for the particular business. Combining this information with our customers input, we model the amount of energy reused, the equivalent carbon saving and the cash value.
Typically, payback can be achieved in 2 to 4 years and sometimes less.
Click here to see how much Process Energy have helped other customers have saved
What environmental benefits will I see from energy efficiency and process optimisation?
The biggest users of energy are large thermal processes like overs, dryers and boilers, which mostly consume natural gas. Taking process optimisation and efficiency measures will reduce or eliminate some of the fossil fuel use on your site, with heat energy recovery and reuse further cutting consumption of primary carbon fuels. These actions can be the biggest single step you can take to reducing your scope 1 emissions on your path to Net Zero.
There are numerous articles and reports supporting these benefits – “Capturing and reusing waste heat could power most of Europe” according to one report.
By cutting your energy use, you will not only save money, but cut your carbon emissions and meet the growing expectation from consumers and retailers to take action. Industrial sustainability can be tricky, with many grey areas on how to make savings, with a growing number of companies accused of greenwashing. Process optimisation and energy efficiency avoids all of this, by producing real, tangible results.
A 2023 study shows that two-thirds of customers highlight sustainability as an important decision in their choice when shopping, even if it means paying slightly more.
Will installing heat recovery solutions impact plant operation?
Our solution designs always consider how making changes could affect the original primary process. Our solutions are designed to “fail safe” both in safety terms and in process terms.
In the case of recovering heat from gas burner flues we would tend to draw those waste heat gases away using a slightly negative pressure. If the heat recovery equipment were not available for any reason, then there would be no force drawing the waste heat gases away and the flues would operate in their original manner without any interference.
Where possible we look to install the heat recovery plant physically ‘offline’, to enable ease of access for cleaning and maintenance.
During the initial installation of heat recovery equipment there will inevitably some disruption. Our designs are usually delivered to site in a modular form so that site assembly time can be minimised. Final connections and break-in are planned well in advance and are usually can be carried out during short planned shutdown (weekends, regularly scheduled maintenance).
Process Energy work with the space and constraints that you have.
As part of an initial site assessment we take all of your operational needs into account and assess, access and space constraints to ensure our solution can be delivered efficiently with minimal disruption.
What is the lifetime and maintenance requirement of heat recovery?
Maintenance requirements will vary depending on the application and process conditions. Some systems will need almost no maintenance, some may require more regular cleaning depending on the contaminants in the exhaust gas.
Different applications and industries will lead to various contamination in the gas that can cause build-up of contaminants or corrosion within the heat recovery unit. If required a clean-in-place (CIP) system can also be included within the installation to reduce manual maintenance.
Process Energy can provide ongoing aftercare support and maintenance, ensuring a long and healthy life for our solutions.
How can I further reduce my dependence on fossil fuels?
Process optimisation and heat recovery are actions that you can undertake now and make a significant impact. However, to fully decarbonise manufacturing process heat further steps will be needed. At present some of those steps are cost prohibitive, unclear, or are waiting on infrastructure changes which are in the pipeline.
We aim to future proof all of our solutions as far as possible, such as providing the flexibility for multiple fuel sources.
With developments with renewable electricity, hydrogen clusters, and bio-fuels coming in the near future it is important to consider how your process will change when running different fuels. Temperatures, flowrates, and other conditions may change, and Process Energy take all of these on-board to ensure your solution will continue to be effective when you choose to make the change.
Once you have gone through the first four stages of our step-by-step process it is likely that you will have already been able to considerably reduce your energy consumption. To make the final step in decarbonising your process we need to consider fuel switching. Multiple technologies are currently available and coming online to help switch from natural gas to different, lower carbon technologies. Process Energy have vast experience working with these technologies and can help you switch, whether it is electrifying your system or switching to an industrial hydrogen cluster. We also understand the cost implications and can help mitigate any rising costs where possible.
Energy Reduction Case Studies
Welcome to our FAQ page dedicated to industrial energy reduction and reclamation.