The heat recovery potential in French industry: a survey of opportunities for heat pumps systems in food and beverages sector
Résumé
The growing costs and the availability of fuels make it necessary to reduce energy consumption in industrial processes. Almost three-quarters of final energy use are for thermal purposes (boilers, thermal end-uses), but one third of them are wasted through losses while the production of this heat (mainly by combustion of fossil fuels) generates great amounts of CO2 emissions. However, the lower temperature range of this heat could be (technically and economically) recovered through heat pumps (HP) systems although it is seldom reused for the moment. HPs have made great technological progresses by providing at the same time useful heat at higher temperatures and the possibility of replacing boilers (main heat source). Therefore, it seems important to recover and reuse this heat in order to achieve the 20/20/20 EU scheme against climate change for an energy efficient and lowcarbon economy. HPs represent an important technology which can reduce significantly CO2 emissions. Our work's aim consist in estimating the opportunities of HPs in French food and beverages sector, examining conditions of accessibility to the potential of heat recovery (specifically in low temperatures) and the reduction of CO2 emissions until 2020 through TIMES, a "bottom-up" energy model. In this energy forecasting analysis, an economic dimension is integrated to simulate competition between current and future HPs by taking into account the evolution of energy prices and industry demand. Our model gives, among other things, the evolution of the share of HP-substitutable fuel consumption related to consumption of fuels for steam boiler in different temperature range in this industry. It is a business policy tool in opportunities for HPs in heat recovery potential to better achieves energy savings.