Assessment of the potential of heat recovery in food and drink industry by the use of TIMES model

Panel: 3. Energy use in industry: The road from policy to action

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Alain Hita, EDF, R&D Department, France
Gondia Seck, EDF R&D, France
Gilles Guerassimoff, Centre de Mathématiques Appliquées de l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Paris,, France
Ahcène Djemaa, EDF R&D, France

Abstract

In industry, around three-quarters of final energy uses are for thermal purposes (boilers, dryers, ovens, etc..). Unfortunately, it is estimated that one quarter of this energy is lost through heat losses in fumes and wastewater. However, the lowest temperature range of this heat could be (technically and economically) recovered through heat pumps systems. It is also possible to recover low temperature heat from other energy uses like air compressors or refrigeration systems. Heat pumps present great technical potentials by providing heat at higher temperatures, they can substitute part of the heat provided by traditional fossil combustible boilers. But their adoption will depend mainly on their economical competitiveness.

The purpose of our work is to highlight the opportunities of heat pumps in French food and drink industry and to examine the economical and technical conditions of market accessibility. We want to know what particular sub-sectors in food and drink industry are more promising for heat recovery. We also investigate what amount of energy recovery could be reached with innovative high temperature heat pumps.

For that, we use a prospective energy model, considering food and drink industry at a highly disaggregated level (4-digit level of NACE classification) , with 11 energy uses, and 8 temperatures ranges per energy use. The modelling tool is TIMES model (family of best known MARKAL model). It is a mathematical model of an energy system of one or several regions that provides a technology-rich basis for estimating energy dynamics over a multi-period horizon.

This model was originally built for assessing energy consumption in industry, under different prospective scenarios. But it is also adequate to simulate competition between heat pumps and boilers using fossil combustibles, under different energy prices or heat pumps performances hypothesis.