Search for: Select region Oilon Products References Contact us Downloads Webshop Oilon Care Setting the mega­trend Nov 11, 2021 | General UK, Indus­trial Heat Pumps Oilon’s intense 15-year R&D with indus­trial heat pumps is now bearing fruit. Take any inter­na­tional scen­ario for redu­cing carbon emis­sions, and you will see heat pumps in a key role. Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tional Energy Agency IEA, for example, heat pumps will cover 50 percent of the heating of build­ings by 2045. The agency pre­dicts the monthly amount of installed heat pumps will soar from 1.5 million to 3–5 million in 2030. The reason for the spec­tac­u­lar growth is simple: heat pump tech­no­logy is a very effi­cient means to reduce our depend­ence on fossil fuels and to cut carbon emis­sions from the energy sector and industry. Accord­ing to IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2021 report, wide util­iz­a­tion of heat pumps is com­puls­ory to meet the require­ments of the Paris Agree­ment on climate change. Energy com­pan­ies take on large heat pumps Indus­trial heat pumps func­tion accord­ing to the same prin­ciple as the common air-to-air heat pumps for con­sumers, but the amount of energy pro­duced can be thou­sand­fold. Indus­trial heat pumps typ­ic­ally use waste heat or the heat energy absorbed in the outside air as their heat source. Large heat pumps can produce tem­per­at­ures as high as 120 Celcius very cost-efficiently. “This is now par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing to energy com­pan­ies who wish to use large heat pumps to replace coal and other fuels. Due to emis­sions trading schemes, climate reg­u­la­tion, and brand repu­ta­tion, the com­pan­ies are under great pres­sure to reduce their emis­sions,” says Martti Kukkola, Chief Busi­ness Officer, Oilon. It is also about making a profit. The price hikes of coal, oil, and natural gas during 2021 have left many com­pan­ies pon­der­ing altern­at­ives. Oilon sees this phe­nomenon in the form of inquir­ies from new cus­tom­ers. “The new factory is just the begin­ning” The revenue of Oilon’s indus­trial heat pump busi­ness doubled in 2019 and again in 2020. In 2021, the growth con­tin­ues although pro­duc­tion has been slightly slowed by delays in the supply of com­pon­ents due to the COVID pan­demic. Oilon cel­eb­rated the inaug­ur­a­tion of a new factory in Kokkola, Finland, in Novem­ber 2021. The factory is ded­ic­ated to man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­trial heat pumps. “The pro­spects are so good that we wanted to quad­ruple the pro­duc­tion capa­city. Now we are capable of pro­du­cing around 600 indus­trial heat pumps per year. This is only the begin­ning, though. We will prob­ably have to expand the capa­city already around 2025,” Kukkola says. Glob­ally, Oilon is best known for burners, but Kukkola pre­dicts indus­trial heat pumps will be Oilon’s largest busi­ness unit in the future. Cus­tom­ers inquire about 100 MW pro­jects Oilon has inves­ted heavily in the R&D of large heat pumps for the last 15 years. The Coef­fi­cient of Per­form­ance (COP) has risen con­tinu­ously and reaches 10 in Chill­Heat solu­tions when both heating and cooling are pro­duced. Not many man­u­fac­tur­ers can reach tem­per­at­ures of 120 degrees Celsius. “The cus­tom­ers have taken note of the devel­op­ment, which is great. Nev­er­the­less, there is still a lot to learn about the tech­no­logy. For example, requests for quo­ta­tions may include the require­ment of the largest pos­sible heat pumps although several smaller units can often be better. Our job is to find out which solu­tion is the best choice for a par­tic­u­lar cus­tomer in a par­tic­u­lar project.” The optimal solu­tion depends on the applic­a­tion, heat source, the tem­per­at­ure of the required heat or cooling, cir­cum­stances, the prop­erty, and many other factors. The Oilon Selec­tion Tool soft­ware helps cus­tom­ers to find the right solu­tions with Oilon’s experts. The name­plate power rating of Oilon’s indus­trial heat pumps is from 30 kW to 2 MW. By con­nect­ing several heat pumps, “trains” are pro­duced, and the com­bined output can be tens of mega­watts. The series con­nec­tion also helps to optim­ize part-load effi­ciency and overall per­form­ance. “Cus­tom­ers are more and more inter­ested in large heat pump systems of up to 100 MW and more”, Kukkola says. Energy from two kilo­met­ers under­ground All of Oilon’s indus­trial heat pumps are pro­duced in the new factory in Kokkola, Finland. In 2020, four out of five pumps were expor­ted. The most import­ant target regions are Europe, China, and South America. A new prom­ising market is North America, where Oilon is cur­rently opening sales. Applic­a­tions for indus­trial heat pumps come in a wide variety. Oilon’s ref­er­ence pro­jects can be found via the links: Dis­trict heating. Outside air or waste heat from cooling, for example, is used as the heat source. Indus­trial heat pumps are typ­ic­ally used to replace the power pro­duced by power sta­tions in the dis­trict heating network. When coal is being replaced, the emis­sion reduc­tions are at their largest. Com­bined heating and cooling. Oilon Chill­Heat systems produce green heat and cooling for build­ings sim­ul­tan­eously. Property-specific heat pumps are a con­veni­ent solu­tion when the facil­ity is located outside dis­trict heating and cooling net­works. Util­iz­ing flue gases. The flue gases of heating are dir­ec­ted to a heat pump which removes the heat energy from the gases to the water cir­cu­lat­ing in the heating system. Battery parks. Large battery parks of hun­dreds of mega­watts in capa­city are becom­ing common around the world. They are needed to bring flex­ib­il­ity to elec­tri­city grids with fluc­tu­at­ing wind and solar energy. Indus­trial heat pumps are used to cool the bat­ter­ies and remove their waste heat to a dis­trict heating network, for example. Recyc­ling energy in indus­trial facil­it­ies. Indus­trial pro­cesses produce vast amounts of waste heat that is often dir­ec­ted straight out of the facil­ity without being util­ized in any way. A better idea is to recover the waste heat with indus­trial heat pumps. With large heat pumps, the waste heat can be turned into 120-degree Celcius heat. The same pump system can also be used to produce cooling energy. Medium-deep geo­thermal wells. At the bottom of 2km-deep geo­thermal wells, the tem­per­at­ure is a steady 40 degrees Celsius. Large heat pumps are used to trans­fer the heat to a dis­trict heating system, which can decrease the carbon emis­sions of heating by up to 95 percent. Food industry. In food factor­ies, dairies, meat-processing plants, and many other facil­it­ies in the food industry, heat and cooling are needed at the same time. Indus­trial heat pumps are a cost-efficient and envir­on­ment­ally sound solu­tion. The pumps typ­ic­ally use waste heat as the heat source or dir­ectly produce cooling whenever needed. Products References Dealers and maintenance companies Oilon Ground Source Heat pumps Conditions of use Privacy policy Career at Oilon Oilon Contact Us Oilon Group Oy Metsä-Pietilänkatu 1, PL 5, 15801 Lahti, Finland Phone: (03) 85 761 Email: info@oilon.com Webshop Oilon Selection Tool Oilon Care Sitemap © Oilon Group Oy We use cookies to optimize our website and our service. Privacy Policy Functional Marketing Accept all Save preferences