Heat production panic – here it is, or should I wait until October to announce it? Regardless of the answer to this question, I know that many entrepreneurs in the manufacturing industries look towards winter at least with concern. In this column, I will try very briefly to mention the refrigeration technologies that can help you survive the winter.

Let’s start the telegraphic shortcut!

• If anything in your plant is still heated by an electric heater, consider whether it will be cheaper to burn with money. Seriously! The electric heater is an archaic solution that can be successfully replaced with a heat pump. However, there is an enormous amount of technology behind the term heat pump. CO2 heat pumps can easily reach 95 ° C, but require a relatively low return temperature. These technologies already exist and are proven.
• Energy Harvesting – I’ve had more factory and commercial facility audits behind me than I can remember, but I remember one feature that most of them have in common. The heat sources to be recovered are scattered over a very large area, and each of them has a relatively small power (e.g. 20 kW). This means that the heat recovery system will transport relatively small amounts of it from a wide variety of sources to one place. This requires a wide variety of heat recovery technologies (air compressors, refrigeration equipment, furnaces, boilers, collectors) and, in the center, an ingenious tank that will collect all that heat. These technologies already exist and are proven.
• Heating systems – central heating, domestic hot water, central heating … their temperature will decrease. Times of central heating systems 90/60 are long gone and there will be no return to them. So if you have such a system in your plant, think about how long it is worth maintaining and when should you invest in upgrading to a lower performance system. The lower heat parameter allows the use of the above-described technologies. In my opinion, this is the perfect moment for such reconstructions. Relevant technologies already exist and are proven.
  Especially with regard to the last point, Dear Reader, do not let me say, “did I tell you?” In a few years’ time.

Maurycy Szwajkajzer

for the Chłodnictwo i Klimatyzacja magazine