Posted by Sigma Thermal on | Comments Off on Unlocking Profitability With Waste Heat Recovery
Waste heat is recoverable—it can be a valuable resource. If your facility is discarding waste heat or incurring extra expenses to manage it, you can benefit greatly from industrial waste heat recovery units (WHRUs). With the rising cost of fossil fuels and increasingly stringent environmental regulations, industrial facilities need efficient, cost-effective WHRUs to reduce their carbon footprint while improving productivity.
Industrial waste heat recovery systems capture and reuse heat in many industrial processes. With WHRUs, companies can simultaneously reduce their energy costs and fossil fuel consumption. Learn more about how investing in waste heat recovery solutions can improve your operational efficiency and profitability over time.
Common Sources and Consumers of Waste Heat
Almost every industrial facility has heat-generating processes or equipment of some type. In many cases, those processes or equipment are relatively inefficient and need to be actively cooled by other systems or exhaust energy into the atmosphere. By matching waste heat producers with an application that consumes heat, your facility can reduce energy costs and become more sustainable.
As a general rule of thumb in how waste heat recovery works, waste heat producers with exhaust gas streams of at least 450 °F have the greatest potential for heat recovery. This includes waste heat producers like the following:
Blast furnaces
Combustion turbines and engines
Dryers
Kilns
Ovens
Process heaters
Thermal oxidizers
Common waste heat consumers include:
General process heating
Wash water pre-heating
Building comfort heating
ORC generators
Steam generators
Boiler feedwater preheaters
Combustion air pre-heating
Application Highlight: Combustion Turbines
Facilities utilizing combustion turbines and engines stand to gain some of the highest returns from waste heat recovery solutions. These turbines generate massive amounts of high-temperature exhaust that is often simply vented into the atmosphere. By integrating a custom-engineered waste heat recovery unit (WHRU), you can capture this thermal energy to power several critical functions:
Steam and electricity generation. Recovered exhaust heat can be channeled into steam generators or organic rankine cycle (ORC) generators. This allows your facility to generate additional electricity on-site, significantly decreasing your consumption from the grid.
Process fluid heating. Using a heat exchanger, the thermal energy from the turbine exhaust can be transferred to oil, glycol, or other thermal fluids. This heated medium can then be used to support reactors, heating tanks, and more.
Preheating for efficiency. Waste heat can be used to preheat combustion air for burners. This reduces the “new” fuel required for these processes and can improve overall system efficiency to over 93%.
Facility HVAC. The thermal energy captured from turbines can be repurposed for building comfort heating, ensuring facility occupants remain comfortable without incurring additional heating costs.
Calculating the ROI: The Financial Case for Waste Heat Recovery
Waste heat recovery can cut down on energy consumption, reduce costs, and make your facility more eco-friendly. But every facility change needs clear numbers to get buy-in from stakeholders. Understanding the true ROI potential of waste heat recovery can help convince more stakeholders across your organization to embrace these technologies and streamline operations over the long term.
Direct Cost Reduction
To calculate your ROI for installing a waste heat recovery system, start by calculating the costs of the waste heat, including the opportunity costs and additional expenses incurred by having to heat other processes with “new” energy. For example, an aluminum can manufacturer might incinerate VOCs with a thermal oxidizer in the label printing process. Calculate the electrical and natural gas consumption of the incineration process.
Then consider the cost reductions of having a WHRU that transfers that waste heat into hot water. That heat energy can preheat boiler feedwater or wash water for the aluminum cans, significantly reducing or eliminating the new fuel otherwise needed to heat the water. Alternatively, the facility might use that same waste energy to power an ORC unit that generates electricity for the facility, decreasing consumption from the grid. Calculate the energy savings and compare that to the expenses without a waste heat recovery system to uncover the ROI.
Typically, heat-to-heat transfers offer the highest ROI because they are the most direct and efficient. If you can identify heat consumers in your facility, such as feedwater or air heaters, this can yield the biggest savings and improve ROI.
Incentives and Credits
Some organizations and state or federal grant programs offer hefty incentives and credits that decrease the initial cost of your investment. Incentives and credits can shorten the payback period for waste heat recovery equipment, which can make it more appealing to corporate stakeholders. An environmental specialist in your region can help your company identify industry- or location-specific incentives that you may be eligible for.
Partner With Sigma Thermal for Waste Heat Recovery
Waste heat recovery systems help industrial facilities harness a resource that you already have: excess heat. Instead of letting it go to waste, you can make your thermal heat management processes more efficient, reduce fossil fuel consumption and associated costs, and power green initiatives.
Sigma Thermal is the heat energy management expert for industrial processes. We offer in-depth energy audits and custom-engineered, high-ROI WHRUs that cater to your facility’s needs. We also have expertise in specialized projects like handling high-particulate heated gas streams from biomass combustion. Our systems are built to last and provide ongoing heating efficiency, and we guarantee that you’ll realize energy savings and financial return from every project.
Posted by Sigma Thermal on | Comments Off on Reclaiming Every BTU: The Ultimate Guide to Industrial Waste Heat Recovery
Industrial facilities release significant amounts of recoverable waste heat every day—energy that was purchased but not productively used. Much of it is lost through hot exhaust streams, representing major opportunities for industrial operations to implement waste heat recovery systems.
At Sigma Thermal, our advanced waste heat recovery systems capture the thermal energy, transfer it to where it is needed, and reuse it as opposed to simply releasing it into the atmosphere. Recovering this otherwise lost energy allows facilities to reduce operating costs and improve efficiency while supporting environmental goals. As energy prices continue to rise, implementing waste heat recovery has become a strategic and financially sound investment.
What Is Waste Heat and Where Can It Be Found?
Industrial processes produce substantial heat, but a significant portion escapes through stacks, vents, cooling water, and blowdown. Any process that burns fuel, compresses air, oxidizes VOCs, or dries product and reaches at least 450 °F is a good candidate for waste heat recovery.
Common Waste Heat Producers
Thermal oxidizers. Used to destroy VOCs, thermal oxidizers release high-temperature exhaust streams that are ideal for waste heat recovery.
Combustion turbines. Combustion turbines generate hot gas, often over 900 °F, that can be repurposed.
Fired heaters. These are commonly found in oil, gas, and chemical manufacturing. The flue gases they expel are prime heat recovery candidates.
Kilns. Cement, lime, and mineral processing kilns release high volumes of hot exhaust.
Dryers. Industrial drying systems often vent substantial amounts of thermal energy in their process air.
Blast furnaces. Steel production involves extreme temperatures, with exhaust heat that can be captured and redirected.
Engine and turbine exhaust. Engines used for power generation or compression emit consistent high-temperature heat.
Steam system exhaust/blowdown. Boiler blowdown contains high-pressure, high-temperature flash steam that can be recovered.
Technologies for Waste Heat Recovery
Understanding how waste heat recovery works involves knowing the right system to capture it and directing it to a process that can use that heat. At Sigma Thermal, our engineers design and build the following types of waste heat technologies.
Combustion Air Pre-Heat (CAPH) Systems
CAPH systems use heater exhaust gases to pre-heat incoming combustion air. Combustion air burns better at higher temperatures, and plants can see system efficiency increase to 90%.
Waste Heat-Powered Thermal Fluid Heating Systems
Using thermal oil, water, or glycol, these closed-loop systems capture thermal energy from waste heat producers and deliver it wherever your process needs it. Our heat exchanger heat recovery design keeps the transfer reliable and efficient, even over long distances.
High Particulate Systems
Particulate-rich exhaust from biomass systems requires robust, specialized heat exchangers. Sigma Thermal specializes in biomass and gasification systems for oil, gas, and chemical plants, and can capture waste heat from high-particulate exhaust gas. Once recovered, this thermal energy can be used with any waste heat consumer.
Common Waste Heat Consumers
Recovered heat can be used almost anywhere thermal energy is needed:
Combustion air pre-heating
Boiler feedwater heating
ORC generators for on-site electricity
Building HVAC systems
Wash water pre-heating
General process heat (tank heating, heat exchangers, thermal fluid heaters)
Sigma Thermal: Your Partner in Energy Efficiency
Industrial waste heat recovery is one of the most effective ways to reduce annual fuel usage and advance sustainability goals. When combined with available federal and state tax incentives, industrial waste heat recovery systems can save facilities a significant amount of money and improve ROI.
If your facility is ready to make waste heat recovery part of its long-term strategy, Sigma Thermal is your partner. Our engineers are experts in heat energy management, and we offer hands-on services ranging from audits to detailed technical evaluations. We supply the right equipment to guarantee maximum energy savings.
Posted by Sigma Thermal on | Comments Off on Opportunities Waste Heat Recovery Creates for Industries
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Process heat is essential to many industrial operations; however, a significant amount of that heat energy is lost due to exhaust gases and steam, the heat released by industrial ovens, cooling processes, and as a byproduct of refrigeration. Instead of releasing it into the environment, this heat energy can be recovered and used to offset energy needs in many industrial processes including:
Heating feedwater in boilers for steam applications or for use with closed loop heat transfer systems
Combustion air preheating for process heaters, boilers, ovens, and furnaces
Creating electricity with an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) unit – waste heat is transferred to hot oil or hot water that is then used to drive an ORC turbine that utilizes the heat transfer fluid to drive the turbine and generate electricity
Here, we’ll look at the principles behind waste heat recovery and some examples of how it can be used in industry.
Opportunities for Waste Heat Recovery in Different Industries
Heat waste can be grouped into three broad categories: high temperatures over 400°C (e.g., from combustion), medium temperatures between 100°C and 400°C (e.g., exhaust from combustion), and low temperatures under 100°C.
Depending on the type of heat being captured and the target applications, there are several ways to design waste heat recovery systems. These systems may use a combination of condensers, evaporators, heat exchangers, compressors, turbines, generators, and pre-heaters to reclaim heat for energy savings.
Waste heat recovery technologies are used to offset fossil fuel consumption from existing process heating equipment which also reduces carbon emissions, or for on-site power generationThese systems are used in many industries including, but not limited to, the following:
Municipal Power Generation
Power plants use waste heat recovery technology to improve the efficiency of combustion turbines and power boilers.
Fuel Refining
Heat is recovered from applications such as:
Thermal cracking
Petroleum distillation
Flue gas emissions (with proper handling of sulphuric acid byproducts)
The reclaimed heat can be used in boilers or for pre-heating in cold combustion air processes.
Cement Production
Cement facilities operate kilns at 200°C to 400°C to produce clinker, the material that is finely ground to create cement. Waste heat from kilns can be recaptured to produce additional process heat or energy. Research by the Department of Energy indicates that while this technology is readily available, it has traditionally been underutilized.
Food Industry
Many food processing and production applications generate low- to medium-temperature waste heat that can be recovered. Some examples include heat generated by:
Refrigeration and freezing
Rendering
Hot cleaning and wash water and steam
Singeing and scaling in meat and poultry processing
Dairy and egg pasteurization
Cooking and canning fruits and vegetables
Baking and frying
Iron and Steel Industry
Iron and steel production requires enormous amounts of energy, resulting in equally enormous amounts of waste heat. Opportunities for recovery include:
Heat from cooling areas and slag
Combustion exhaust from blast furnaces
Waste gas from electric arc furnaces in steel recycling
Heat capture from dry and wet coke quenching
Learn More About Waste Heat Recovery
As technology evolves, the advantages of waste heat recovery continue to increase. Selecting a system tailored to your application translates to greater energy efficiency and facility-wide savings.
Sigma Thermal specializes in providing waste heat recovery systems and process heat solutions for customers in many industries. Our products include thermal oil and thermal fluid heating systems, electric process heaters, indirect process bath heaters, direct-fired process heaters, biomass-fired energy systems, system automation, parts, and retrofits/upgrades.
Please contact us to learn more about waste heat recovery and process heat options, or request a quote today.
Posted by Nicole Laney on | Comments Off on Save Money with Waste Heat Recovery Systems
Why implement a waste heat recovery system into your application? With natural gas prices currently trending at historical lows there is no question that the potential payback from waste heat recovery projects has fallen considerably. That being said, solid economic justification still exists for many simple thermal efficiency improvements.
Do you have an exhaust stack with exhaust temperature over 500Fº? Does that process operate continuously, or at a high frequency over the course of the year? Do you have an older heater, boiler, or furnace with burner/combustion control technology that has never been upgraded? If so, you should consider one of the following relatively simple projects to cut your fuel consumption:
Retrofit your burner with modern electronic fuel/air ratio control to keep your burner running on ratio at all firing rates.
Consider using a self-contained combustion air pre-heat system that doesn’t require heating an auxiliary process.
Install a waste heat recovery coil in your stack to heat water, air, or to make steam for other processes in your plant.
As experts in the heat recovery and combustion automation business, we can provide you with the most appropriate system for your needs. In addition we can also offer engineering studies and energy audits to determine if you have a viable waste heat recovery project. Contact us today to find out if you should be spending less on your fuel bills.
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Almost every industrial facility has heat-generating processes or equipment of some type. In many cases, those processes or equipment are relatively inefficient and need to be actively cooled by other systems or exhaust energy into the atmosphere. By matching waste heat producers with an application that consumes heat, your facility can reduce energy costs and become more sustainable.
