Techno-Economic Comparison of Steam Generation Systems with Industrial Heat Pumps
Abstract
Steam generation significantly contributes to the energy demand in industry since steam is widely used as energy carrier. To cope with energy efficiency measures, it becomes crucial to recover the industrial waste heat as it is an inevitable product. Thus, the integration of a heat pump (HP) assists in this recovery for steam generation. In this work, the generation of saturated steam with a pressure of 2 bar¬a based on an industrial high temperature HP is investigated. The HP is integrated into the process and realized with three main approaches: 1) direct steam generation, 2) steam generation with a flash tank and 3) steam generation with a drum. The first method uses two different kinds of heat exchangers as HP condensers. The second is a flash tank system with a circulation pump. The last approach relies on natural circulation of the hot water. This work conducts a simulation-based analysis to examine the performance of these configurations. The findings reveal a promising applicability of such systems, which allows in promoting the energy efficiency measures in industry.