case studies

Global Manufacturer 1500kW Production Heating System

Application                                                                          

The Pure Thermal Applications Engineering Team supported the client from feasibility through to specification, supply, commissioning and ongoing operational maintenance.

To meet corporate energy and carbon targets this FTSE 100 Manufacturer required a renewable energy production heating system that also had the future capability to recycle & repurpose waste heat from production processes and to also store higher grade heat at 95°C.

In order to provide a system that could be integrated with the existing heating system, encompassing air handling units and production heating interfaces.

The heat pump design needed to deliver high temperature capability to meet the demands of the production area from both space heating and process heating perspectives.

In terms of carbon the heat pump system design provided the lowest level of global warming potential (GWP) with a GWP level of 3 achieved via the use of R290 Propane Refrigerant and Low GWP R1234ze. This type of ultra-low GWP two stage system is suitable for applications where sub 10 GWP is required and/or the lowest levels of lifetime carbon emissions.

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Additionally, to provide maximum value and site versatility, the Heat Pump System needed to have the ability to provide a cooling output to deliver process cooling resilience alongside an installed process chiller system. This enable the heat pump system to provide increased value to the client by having the additional capability to deliver peak summer cooling and support both the cooling systems and heating demands.

This application also demonstrated the highest levels of versatility with the heat pump system being able utilise waste process heat from site as the heat pump source load.

This dual source capability enables a heat pump system to have the ability to operate as either air source or waste heat source in order to create additional opportunities to deliver higher efficiency future operation.

By recycling waste heat, which is second time use and by default zero carbon, a heat pump will provide the highest efficiency level. This is still relevant, and should be considered, even if the waste heat load is not continuous because the heat pump will provide much higher efficiency than air source even if waste heat source operation is only available for a small percentage of the time.

To satisfy the application requirements, as summarised above, this 1500kW production heating system was specified to achieve multiple operational objectives with the primary objective acting as the lead design criteria being High Flow Temperature and Low GWP.

Equipment Schedule

This Pure Thermal PLUS Two Stage Heat Pump System was configured with 5 x Stage 1 R290 Propane Air Source units and 3 x Stage 2 Water/Water units delivering a peak capacity of 1500kW.

Resilience and load management are provided at the highest level via the modular design and muti circuit/multi compressor specification of both Stage 1 and Stage 2 units.

Stage 1 Range/Model: Pure Thermal Enerblue/Purple 50.2

Stage 2 Range/Model: Pure Thermal Oilon/P220

Cooling delivery temperature: -7°C (Peak demand resilience capacity)

Heating delivery temperature: 85°C (95°C capable for thermal storage)

Refrigerant: Stage 1 R290 Propane and Stage 2 R1234ze

Low GWP: 3

Unit number: Stage 1 x 5 units and Stage 2 x 3 units

Nominal capacity: 1,500kW

Summary

This PLUS Two Stage production heating system provided an ideal solution for this project and demonstrates that applying Low GWP (sub 3) systems within demanding retrofit heating applications provides both an efficient and low carbon solution.

As summarised above, this retrofit production heating system was designed to achieve multiple operational objectives with high temperature heating capability being the lead design criteria (95°C capable) with equal importance being placed on the Low GWP refrigerant selection (GWP 3).

Alongside the required high levels of performance noted above the application also delivers high levels of both resilience and load management via the modular design and muti circuit/multi compressor specification of both Stage 1 and Stage 2 units.

Purple 50.2 R290

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