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Stirling heat pump for high temperature industrial use

Project description

Turning up the heat efficiently and sustainably

Industrial sectors around the world rely on heat for a myriad of uses including washing, drying, sterilising, process heating and so much more. Demand for heat accounts for most of the industrial energy demand as well as significant global energy consumption, and it contributes to increased emissions. In particular, the demand for high-temperature process heat is on the rise, and it is primarily fuelled by conventional boilers. The EU-funded Highlift project is developing an innovative high temperature heat pump to make industrial processes greener. The system will take in water warmed to low temperatures by waste heat recovery processes and heat it with electricity to produce steam. The technology promises to slash energy consumption and emissions and have a tremendous impact on this huge global sector.

Objective

Industry is the highest heat consuming sector, and its need for high temperature process heat is on the increase. However, 83% of industrial process heat is still supplied by inefficient and polluting fossil fuel boilers. The Highlift project will develop a next-generation high temperature heat pump (HTHP) based on an innovative 4-cylinder alpha configuration Stirling engine design. Highlift accepts low temperature (30´C) input water drawn from industrial waste heat recapture systems and use electrical energy to generate saturated steam at over 180´C. Such temperature lifts are not possible with any other HTHP today. The Highlift project optimises the industrial design via 1) increased system efficiency, 2) improved reliability, 3) 30% cut on production costs, 4) refined production quality control, and 5) improved Cloud-based operating system. We will pilot the near-market prototype at a single high-profile multinational industrial end user with high demands in terms of constant, intensive operation and high output temperature requirements. The project will simultaneously undertake a market maturation process including up- and downstream supply chain development, in-depth target market analyses, and validation of the business and commercialisation strategy. This will bring the HighLift technology to full commercial readiness at the end of the project. Over 25,000 hours of tests with industry since 2012 have shown that it is feasible to use Highlift to generate hot industrial process steam in an economic and environmentally sustainable way. Highlift reduces energy consumption to supply high temperature process heat by 50-70% and will cut industrial CO2 emissions when producing high temperature steam by 70-96%. Our planned commercial roll-out of 174 Highlift heat pumps by 2025 will save our customers a total of €134.2m and reduce up to 65,600 tons of CO2 (eq) emissions.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

IA - Innovation action

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) H2020-EIC-FTI-2018-2020

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Coordinator

OLVONDO TECHNOLOGY AS
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 879 045,00
Address
WICHMANNSVEGEN 3
5420 Rubbestadneset
Norway

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SME

The organization defined itself as SME (small and medium-sized enterprise) at the time the Grant Agreement was signed.

Yes
Region
Norge Vestlandet Vestland
Activity type
Private for-profit entities (excluding Higher or Secondary Education Establishments)
Links
Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 640 586,25

Participants (5)

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