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，占英国能源最终使用总量的19%。其中超过36%用于食品、化工、造纸和金属行业。食品和饮料加工占42 TWh，造纸9.4 TWh，化学品64 TWh和金属34 TWh。英国的京都目标是在2008-2012年承诺期内将温室气体排放量从1990年的水平减少12.5%。英国正在努力实现这一目标，但不太可能实现更严格的自我设定的目标，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》草案中的新目标所取代（女王陛下政府，2007年）。该法案提出到2020年将二氧化碳排放量减少26-32%的中期目标，以及到2050年减少60%的目标。2007年发表的《能源白色白皮书》列出了一系列措施框架，以实现这些具有挑战性的目标，能源效率是其中之一。由于过去几年能源成本的迅速上升和能源价格的波动，能源效率在加工工业中变得越来越重要。能源成本也可能在各加工部门的总生产成本中占很大比例，能源效率可以提供增加盈利能力和减少环境影响的最佳办法之一。能源效率可以通过多种方式实现，包括提高设备和单元操作的效率、热量回收和工艺集成。在过去的30年里，大量的研究和开发工作一直致力于这些领域。四个主要加工行业的热回收潜力为食品行业2.8 TWh，化工行业1.6 TWh，金属行业0.7 TWh，造纸和纸浆行业0.34 TWh。到目前为止，潜力最大的是食品和饮料以及化学加工部门，本研究建议将主要集中在这两个部门，尽管大多数结果和成果将是通用的。本项目旨在研究和开发从食品和化学加工行业的工艺废物流中回收热能的最佳方法，以提高热性能并最大限度地减少温室气体排放从单元和过程操作。它将涉及研究方法的组合，其中将包括：一）对能源回收技术，特别是那些可以应用于涉及有机材料和热交换器污垢的工艺的技术进行全面的文献综述;二）开发数据库和简化的基于知识的工具，以方便非专家为特定应用选择最合适的技术; iii）详细的现场监测和调查，以获得用于过程分析和热力学模型验证的综合数据集; iv）热力学模型开发，用于详细的系统分析、最佳热设计、集成和控制;以及iv）结果的推广和传播。如果在过程工业中广泛采用热回收，每年可节省5.4 TWh，另外可节省11 TWh，这是由于广泛应用开放式和封闭式循环热泵将废热升级到更有用的温度。如果假设替代燃料将是天然气，那么包括热泵在内的热回收技术的广泛应用每年可减少300万吨二氧化碳排放量，并节省4.62亿美元的燃料费用。这些技术的成功应用也将为英国制造业带来更多的就业和出口机会。

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 This target has now been superseded by new targets in a draft Climate Change Bill (HM Government, 2007).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.