Heat pump technologies: Future proofing your heating system
Published: 16 August, 2023
A plastic packaging manufacturer has future proofed its heating system by replacing fossil-fuelled equipment with heat pump technologies. PWE reports
Many industrial processes like food and beverage, plastics, and rubber, chemical and pharmaceutical, just to name a few, have started looking at heat pumps as an efficient heating solution for a wide range of processes. As they have been getting familiarised with the new technologies, they have started recognising the economic benefits from a most efficient use of energy while also providing a significant benefit towards emission reduction.
A manufacturer of plastic packaging and containers decided to future proof its operations addressing the rising costs of fossil-fuel energy and concerns about its availability and environmental footprint. To do so, it reached out to the ICS Cool Energy team with a request to re-design the existing heating system based on high-efficiency heat pump technology.
During the site visit, the ICS Cool Energy team inspected the four office, production and storage buildings requiring heating. They also examined the two cooling systems already in place and operating under different conditions. One based on a chiller room and dedicated to processes requiring 13/18°C temperatures to work the plastics; the second one dedicated mostly to processes dealing with oil and based on dry coolers with 25/30°C temperatures. Two completely different systems, but perfectly fitted to work with the industrial Free Heating (i-FH) system from ICS Cool Energy.
Heat pump Installation
The existing fossil-fuelled system was delivering approximately 600kW of heating. To replace the old equipment and fulfil that load, the ICS Cool Energy team decided to divide the heating system into two areas corresponding with the existing cooling system. They installed two industrial Free Heating (i-FH) heat pumps – one in combination with the chiller room to deliver 366kW of heating for the space of 9000m3, and another one to deliver 254kW of heating for 4600m3 in combination with the dry-cooler.
Following the installation, the customer immediately noted the difference in the cost of generating the heat by the new heat pump systems.
In the first set-up for the larger space, generating the required 366kW of heating with the i-FH unit cost over 25% than the fossil-fuelled system. Additionally, the customer was able to benefit from 223kW of cooling generated by the i-FH unit in the same time. This additional cooling capacity proved to be crucial when it as used to offset the cooling load suddenly lost when one of the other chillers suddenly broke down.
In the set up with the dry-cooler, generation of 254kW of heating with the i-FH unit cost the manufacturer over 43% less compared with the fossil-fuelled system.
As a result, ICS Cool Energy says the customer has not only future-proved its heating system but has been saving money and benefited from the additional cooling capacity that helped in its emergency. For further information please visit: www.icscoolenergy.com or www.tranetechnologies.com
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