Veronika Wilk - AIT Austrian Institute of Technology GmbH
There is increasing demand for industrial heat pumps in Austria, as they allow for waste heat recovery, efficiency increase and electrification and will therefore play a major role in the future energy system. Austrian electricity generation has already a very high share of renewables, it amounted to 75% in 2018 predominantly provided by hydro power (60% of the gross electricity generation). For the future, the goals for renewable energy supply are even more ambitious. In the current climate and energy strategy, Austria has set itself the target of generating enough electricity to cover 100% of the total national electricity consumption from renewable energy sources in 2030. To further spread the technology in industry, heat pumps with higher heat supply temperatures and larger heating capacities are needed. With heat pumps that deliver high temperature heat up to 160°C, a larger range of applications in industry can be covered. To satisfy the needs of industry, high availability and short payback periods are required. It is therefore essential to come up with reliable and cost-efficient solutions for the technological challenges for high temperature heat applications, such as temperature resistant materials and components. Successful demonstration projects are an important basis to establish trust in new technologies and for further roll out. Typically, heat pumps are integrated into existing processes in the course of operation optimization and integration is therefore often complex. Already in the planning process, several stakeholders interact: the industrial company, heat pump manufacturers, plant engineers and possibly, other planners. Due to the use of waste heat or the replacement of cooling equipment, the heat pump connects processes that were previously separated and can cause interactions. The heat pump must also be designed according to the existing infrastructure such as other heat supply equipment, storage tanks and process heat consumers. Thus, process integration is of great importance and decides on the efficiency of the heat recovery system. This presentation gives an overview on the research and demonstration activities of AIT in the field of high temperatures heat pumps.
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