Energy through Waste Heat Recovery
Heavy industries like steel mills, paper mills and cement mills have by far the largest untapped potential for energy generation in the wasted heat they generate.This energy generally goes wasted as there very few mechanism to trap this heat. Even if mechanisms are there they have been found wanting in operation. Coal based power Plants generally employ Economizers and Air pre-heater to recover the heat which is getting wasted in to environment. These are functional in new installations but are missing in the old setups.
A Department of Energy study, cited by Dick Munsen, author of From Edison to Enron, found untapped potential for 135,000 Megawatts (135 Gigawatts) of cogeneration in the U.S. In addition, a Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory study identified another 64,000 Megawatts (64 Gigawatts) that could be obtained from industrial waste energy recovery. There is enormous co generation potential which exist in heavy industry plants across the world.
We are spending millions on Clean Energy equipment all over the world. But very little has been done to improve the energy efficiencies. Bureau of Energy Efficiency in India is doing a creditable service to improve energy efficiency through voluntary energy audits which are likely to become mandatory very soon.
Waste Heat recovery presents an ideal alternative for energy intensive heavy industries to utilize the energy which is otherwise getting wasted.
Image courtsey Daniel Ullrich
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