The demand for heat in industry accounts for more than 20% of total global energy consumption. Therefore, decarbonizing industrial heat sources is essential to achieving net-zero emission targets. Electrifying heating processes, from space heating systems to industrial furnaces, is seen as one of the clearest solutions to achieve this goal. In addition to reducing emissions, electrification also brings many other benefits, such as improving energy efficiency and reducing operational energy costs.
However, the transition to using electricity still faces many barriers such as economic factors, limitations in technical capacity, lack of specialized knowledge, and issues related to infrastructure. When examining the thermal demand in industry more closely, the scale of the electrification challenge becomes clearer. The industrial sector accounts for about 37% of total global energy consumption; of this, two-thirds is used for heating purposes, and approximately 80% of this thermal demand is still supplied by fossil fuels.
Electrification technology for the heating process
The choice of electric heating technology for industrial processes depends on various factors such as required temperature, heat retention time, and processing capacity. Mature technologies that are widely applied, such as Mechanical Vapour Recompression (MVR) and heat pumps, are suitable for temperature ranges from about 50 to over 200 °C. Meanwhile, electric boilers (e-boilers) and turbo heating devices are gradually becoming more popular, capable of generating temperatures of up to about 500 °C and 1,000 °C, respectively. Additionally, rapid advancements in induction heating technology are also expanding the application range of this method, including processes that require high temperatures. Heating speed is also an important factor; in many cases, electric boilers have an advantage over heat pumps due to their ability to raise temperatures quickly.
Ohmic heating
The ohmic heating system of HRS allows electric current to pass through the product between two electrodes in a 1-meter long ceramic tube. As a result, the juice can be heated to 105 °C in just one second, and then maintained at this temperature for four seconds before cooling down. The ohmic technology itself is not new, but HRS's system uses modern electronic devices to create a very stable temperature curve. This helps preserve product quality while enhancing the efficiency of the thermal processing.
Mechanical Vapor Recompression – MVR
In recent years, interest in using MVR for concentration processes has been increasing. This is understandable in the context of the energy market's significant fluctuations since 2020, as the electricity used in MVR systems is often considerably cheaper than the thermal energy required for traditional concentration processes.
In traditional concentration methods, a high-temperature heat transfer medium (usually pressurized steam) is used to raise the product's temperature above its boiling point, causing water and other volatile compounds to evaporate, thereby obtaining a solution with a higher concentration. The main energy source for this process is the fuel used to heat water to create steam in the boiler, such as gas or oil.
For the MVR system, the vapor generated from the product in the distillation equipment is fed into a compressor to increase pressure and temperature. This vapor stream after compression has a temperature higher than the boiling point of the product and is reused as the heat transfer medium for the distillation equipment itself. Since the compressor is powered by an electric motor, the entire process is driven by electricity rather than thermal energy from fossil fuels. By reusing the evaporated vapor, a large amount of latent heat is recovered, making MVR one of the lowest operating cost methods for water distillation. However, depending on the characteristics of the product or the waste stream that needs to be treated, MVR is not always the most suitable or economically optimal solution.
Source: HRS Heat Exchangers.
