Optimising Thermal Energy Recovery, Utilisation and Management in the Process Industries - OPTITHERM

2006年，工业能源使用量为407太瓦时，占英国最终能源使用量的19%。其中，超过36%被食品、化工、造纸和金属行业消耗。食品饮料加工占42TWh，造纸9.4TWh，化工TWh，金属34TWh。英国《京都议定书》的目标是在2008-2012年的承诺期内将温室气体排放量从1990年的水平减少12.5%。英国正在实现这一目标，但不太可能实现自己设定的更严格的目标，即到2010年将二氧化碳排放量从1990年的水平减少20%。这一目标现已被气候变化法案草案(英国政府，2007年)中的新目标所取代。该法案建议设定到2020年二氧化碳排放量减少26%-32%的中期目标，同时到2050年减少60%的二氧化碳排放量。2007年发布的能源白皮书列出了应对这些具有挑战性的目标的措施框架，能源效率就是其中之一。由于过去几年能源成本的快速上涨和能源价格的波动，能源效率在流程工业中变得越来越重要。能源成本也可能在各个流程部门的总生产成本中占很大比例，能源效率可以提供提高盈利能力和减少环境影响的最佳方法之一。能源效率可以通过多种方式实现，包括提高设备和单元运行的效率、热回收和工艺集成。在过去的30年里，人们在这些领域投入了大量的研究和开发工作。四个主要加工行业的热回收潜力分别为食品部门2.8太瓦时、化工部门1.6太瓦时、金属部门0.7太瓦时和造纸和纸浆工业0.34太瓦时。到目前为止，潜力最大的是食品、饮料和化学加工部门，这项研究提案将主要集中在这两个部门，尽管大多数结果和结果将是通用的。该项目旨在研究和开发从食品和化学品加工行业的过程废流中最佳地回收热能的方法，以提高热性能，并将单位和过程操作的温室气体排放降至最低。这将涉及综合研究方法，其中包括：1)关于能源回收技术，特别是可应用于涉及有机材料和热交换器结垢的工艺的技术的全面文献审查；2)开发数据库和简化的基于知识的工具，以便于非专家选择最适合特定应用的技术；3)详细的现场监测和调查，以获得用于工艺分析和热力学模型验证的综合数据集；4)开发热力学模型，用于详细的系统分析、最佳热设计、综合和控制，以及4)推广和传播结果。如果在流程工业中广泛采用热回收，每年可以节省5.4太瓦时，另外还可以通过广泛应用开式和闭式循环热泵将废热提升到更有用的温度而额外节省11太瓦时。如果假设替代的燃料将是天然气，那么包括热泵在内的热回收技术的广泛应用将有可能每年减少300万吨二氧化碳排放，并节省4.62亿美元的燃料账单。这些技术的成功应用还将为英国制造业带来更多就业和出口机会。

In 2006, industrial energy use was 407 TWh and represented 19 % of total energy end use in the UK. Of this, more than 36% was consumed by the food, chemicals, paper and metals industries. Food and drinks processing accounted for 42 TWh, paper 9.4 TWh, chemicals 64 TWh and metals 34 TWh. The UK's Kyoto target is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5% from 1990 levels within the commitment period of 2008-2012. The UK is on course to meet this target but is unlikely to meet the tougher self-imposed target to cut CO2 emissions by 20% from 1990 levels by 2010. This target has now been superseded by new targets in a draft Climate Change Bill (HM Government, 2007). The Bill proposes to impose an interim target of 26-32% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020 alongside the 60% reduction by 2050. The Energy White Paper published in 2007 sets out a framework of measures to address these challenging targets and energy efficiency is one of them.. Energy efficiency is becoming increasingly important in the process industries due to the rapid rises in energy costs in the last few years and the volatility of energy prices. Energy costs may also represent a significant proportion of the overall production costs in various process sectors and energy efficiency can offer one of the best approaches to increasing profitability and reducing environmental impacts. Energy efficiency can be achieved in a number of ways including improving the efficiency of equipment and unit operations, heat recovery and process integration. Over the last 30 years considerable research and development effort has been devoted to these fields. The heat recovery potential from the four main process industries is 2.8 TWh from the food sector, 1.6 TWh from the chemicals sector, 0.7 TWh from the metals sector and 0.34 TWh from the paper and pulp industry sector. By far, the greatest potential is in the food and drinks and chemical processing sectors and this research proposal will concentrate mainly on these two sectors even though most of the results and outcomes will be generic.The project aims to investigate and develop methodologies for the optimum thermal energy recovery from process waste streams in the food and chemicals process industries to improve thermal performance and minimize greenhouse gas emissions from unit and process operations. It will involve a combination of research approaches, that will include: i) a comprehensive literature review on energy recovery technologies particularly those that can be applied to processes that involve organic materials and heat exchanger fouling; ii) development of a database and simplified knowledge based tools to facilitate the selection, by non experts, of the most appropriate technology for a particular application; iii) detailed field monitoring and investigations to obtain comprehensive data sets for process analysis and thermodynamic model validation; iv) thermodynamic model development for detailed system analysis, optimum thermal design, integration and control, and iv) generalization and dissemination of results. If heat recovery is widely employed in the process industries annual savings of 5.4 TWh can be achieved with additional 11 TWh savings being available from the wide application of open and closed cycle heat pumps to upgrade waste heat to more useful temperatures. If it is assumed that the displaced fuel will be gas then the wide application of heat recovery technologies, including heat pumps, has the potential of 3.0 MtCO2 emissions reduction per year and 462 M savings in fuel bills. Successful application of these technologies will also lead to increased employment and export opportunities for the UK manufacturing industry.