Sustainable process integration of electrification technologies with industrial energy systems

Abstract

To mitigate CO2 emission, the utilization of renewable resources is expected to grow with the wide and active implementation of electrified energy systems. Process industry, one of the most energy-intensive sectors, is strongly demanded to keep up with the trend to improve sustainability. The application of Power-to-Heat technologies to industrial energy systems would bring enormous benefits to the environment, but a systematic design methodology to evaluate the feasibility of electrification in practice has not been fully discussed. This study proposes a framework to evaluate the feasibility of electrification based on Heat Integration. The cost-effective and/or energy-efficient technology is selected by analyzing different characteristics of several power-to-heat technologies, with which the implementation strategy of electrification is designed based on the electrification potential. Economics of electrified energy systems are evaluated, which is compared with conventional ones based on burning fossil fuels. A case study is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed design methodology. From the results, it is indicated that the electrification with a heat pump and an electrode boiler is a promising strategy, while the introduction of an electric heater becomes economically viable at the 23% of considerable reduction in the cost of renewable electricity.