Full Title: A Lightning Moment For Industry: How to Reach Positive Tipping Points in Electrification of Industrial Heat
Author(s): Systemiq
Publisher(s): Systemiq
Publication Date: November 20, 2024
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Industrial companies make the products we use every day, and heat is an important part of many manufacturing processes. Rotating kilns heat limestone to make cement, industrial boilers pasteurise milk or activate chemical processes; iron ore is turned into iron in blast furnaces, and pulp is dried in a furnace to create paper sheets. A quarter of global energy demand is for industrial heat, and almost all of it is currently generated using fossil fuels. Industrial heat contributes almost 20% (6 gigatonnes) to yearly global CO2 emissions.
Industrial heat below 400°C is called low- to medium temperature heat, and is responsible for about 40% of total industrial heat emissions. As the authors will argue later, direct electrification is often the optimal solution to mitigating these emissions. In practice, that includes replacing fossil fuel boilers or furnaces with electric technologies, including heat pumps, mechanical vapour recompression, electric boilers, and thermal energy storage systems. A promising range of electrification technologies is being developed that can reach much higher temperatures, but these are often several years from being commercially available and only applicable to specific sectors. Therefore, this paper focuses on electrification of low- to medium-temperature processes, for which multiple technologies are available for implementation today.
When tipping points are reached for electrification technologies, exponential growth in electrification of industrial heat can be achieved. That typically requires, among other things: access to low cost electricity; a supportive grid cost structure; timely access to grid capacity; suitable commercially available technologies; and a thorough understanding among industrials of the benefits, selection process and eventual technical integration of site-specific electrification solutions. The authors hope that this paper contributes to the acceleration of electrification of industrial heat by showing that electrification of industrial heat is edging closer towards such a tipping point and by setting out a three-phased approach for companies planning to adopt electric technologies.