Sectors
Industrial heat
Electrifying industrial process heat is one of the hardest parts of the energy transition, and it stalls on efficiency: at today’s COPs, a heat pump often costs more to run than the gas boiler it replaces. Every point of COP moves that line.
The duty
High-temperature industrial heat pumps deliver process heat and hot water into the 90 to 150 °C range, often from a warm waste-heat source, which again means a large temperature lift. Natural, high-critical-temperature refrigerants — the pentanes, cyclopentane, butane — keep these cycles subcritical.
These plants run long hours against a gas price, so the operating cost, not the capital cost, usually decides whether the project happens at all.
Why the expander fits here
A large lift is a large amount of destroyed work, and the expander recovers part of it. Raising the COP lowers the electricity bill for the same delivered heat, which is precisely the number that has to beat the gas alternative. For a project sitting just the wrong side of its business case, expansion work recovery can be what moves it across.
What changes on your plant
The expander replaces the expansion valve; the rest of the machine is untouched. It goes into a new high-temperature heat pump or retrofits one already installed.
Does the business case close with an expander?
Set your delivery temperature and refrigerant in the calculator and see the modelled COP gain and the electricity it saves.