• Advances in Energy Research
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• 제7권2호
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• pp.147-166
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• 2020

Industrial cooling towers are often ageing infrastructure that is expensive to maintain and operate. A novel approach is introduced in which a heat pump circuit is incorporated to reduce the load upon the towers by extracting low-grade energy from the stream sent to the towers and repurposing in on-site processing operations. To demonstrate the concept, a model was constructed, which uses industrial data on cooling towers linked to a smelter's sulphuric acid plant, to allow direct economic and environmental impact comparison between different heat recovery and repurposing scenarios. The model's results showed that implementing a heat pump system would significantly decrease annual operating costs and achieve a payback period of 3 years. In addition, overall CO₂ emissions could be reduced by 42% (430,000 kg/year) and a 5% heat load reduction on the cooling towers achieved. The concept is significant as the outcomes introduce a new way for energy intensive industrial sectors, such as mineral processing, to reduce energy consumption and improve long-term sustainable performance.