Journal Article

Estimating the waste heat recovery in the European Union Industry

Kalogirou, Soteris A., Panayiotou, Gregoris P., Tsamos, Kostantinos, Aresti, Lazaros, Christodoulides, Paul, Bianchi, Giuseppe, Florides, Georgios A., Tassou, Savvas A.

2019

Overview

Industrial processes are currently responsible for nearly 26% of European primary energy consumptions and are characterized by a multitude of energy losses. Among them, the ones that occur as heat streams rejected to the environment in the form of exhausts or effluents take place at different temperature levels. The reduction or recovery of such types of energy flows will undoubtedly contribute to the achievement of improved environmental performance as well as to reduce the overall manufacturing costs of goods. In this scenario, the current work aims at outlining the prospects of potential for industrial waste heat recovery in the European Union (EU) upon identification and quantification of primary energy consumptions among the major industrial sectors and their related waste streams and temperature levels. The paper introduces a new approach toward estimating the waste heat recovery in the European Union industry, using the Carnot efficiency in relation to the temperature levels of the processes involved. The assessment is carried out using EU statistical energy databases. The overall EU thermal energy waste is quantified at 920 TWh theoretical potential and 279 TWh Carnot potential.

• Publisher: Joint Center on Global Change and Earth System Science of the University of Maryland and Beijing Normal University,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Carbon dioxide / Ecology / Emissions / Energy / Energy consumption / Energy flow / Environment / Environmental performance / Exhausts / Greenhouse gases / Heat / Heat exchangers / Heat recovery / Heat recovery systems / Industrial wastes / Original Article / Production costs / Thermal energy / Waste heat / Waste heat recovery / Waste management / Waste recovery / Waste streams