Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy that is not put into use and is lost into the environment. There is enough waste heat available in Europe to meet the demands of much of industry and the entire building stock. The ultimate goal of DryFiciency, a five year Horizon2020 project, is to develop technically and economically viable solutions for upgrading this unexploited waste heat streams and process these at higher temperature levels up to 160˚C which can then be economically used in many industrial processes.
The DryFiciency novel heat pump technologies developed and put to test at several demonstration sites aim to achieve heat supply temperatures of up to 160˚C which is of relevance for industrial drying in several industrial sectors such as e.g. paper, chemical industry, textile, or food processing industry.
In line with the EU 2030 Climate and Energy Targets and the Energy Efficiency Directive (2012/27/EU), DryFiciency aims to reduce CO2 emissions by up to 80% and increase energy efficiency in energy-intensive industrial processes. Furthermore, DryFiciency aims to support the industry in complying with the new F-Gas Regulation limiting the total amount of fluorinated gases sold (e.g. for heating & cooling systems) and phasing them out to 2030.
In a nutshell, DryFiciency´s Key
Performance Targets are:
- 1. To improve energy efficiency by up to 80%,
- 2. To reduce production costs by up to 20per cent/kg,
- 3. To reduce CO2 emissions up to 75%.
By offering replicable and adaptable technology for both newly constructed plants and existing plants, DryFiciency paves the way for high temperature heat pumps in energy intensive European industries. To advance research for this effort, the heat pumps have been demonstrated under real production conditions at TRL 7 in industrial drying processes in three leading European industrial companies: Wienerberger, Agrana, and Scanship.
As drying accounts for some 10-25% of the total industrial use in the EU (amounting to between 320TWh – 800 TWh of energy consumption, the significance of making these processes more energy efficient is evident. If the DryFiciency heat pump would be rolled out to 50% of all drying process in the EU, thereby replacing natural gas burners, the impact would amount to 7-18% savings in end energy and a stunning 3-7% of total CO2 emissions. The impact is vast in the fields of industrial drying application and enormous if extended to other fields where heat pump technology can be utilised. Here DryFiciency is leading the way by utilising high temperature heat pump technology in the most efficient way towards a greener European industry.
Learn more about DryFiciency, partners and results, register for the final conference on the 6th July 2021, or participate in one of our designated training modules set for July & August 2021