The techno-economic integrability of high-temperature heat pumps for decarbonizing process heat in the food and beverages industry

Kurzfassung

High-temperature heat pumps (HTHPs) are an emerging technology to improve overall process efficiency and reduce energy demand while enabling a switch from fossil fuels to renewable electricity. New industrial HTHP technologies aim to achieve an output heat temperature of 250 °C, suitable for decarbonising the food and beverages industry considering its temperature requirements of <250 °C. Here, we employ a bottom-up approach to investigate the techno-economic feasibility of integrating new HTHP technologies into heat processes of the German food and beverages industry and estimate emissions reduction potentials under waste heat scenarios. Our results indicate that the new HTHP technologies could meet 12 TWh of process heat demand in the German food and beverages industry and cut emissions by 9% considering Germany's current electricity fuel mix. A modest carbon tax of 38 €/t CO2 eq. or higher makes the HTHPs cost-competitive with an optimised fossil fuel-based alternative.