While waste heat recovery systems have long been utilized in Europe, the American market for these literal energy savers is only just beginning to blossom. According to a market analysis released by Transparency Market Research (TMR), a marketing research and consulting firm, the demand for waste heat recovery systems will become a key player in lowering emissions and the environmental impact of corporations across the globe.
Despite this growth, the extent to which the United States government and corporations will be interested in reducing emissions in the coming years is increasingly uncertain. President Donald Trump is a leading skeptic of climate change, and the controversial president has expressed little interest in working with the international community to reduce emissions.
Despite the heat waste recovery market’s potential, most Americans are unfamiliar with this technology. Waste heat recovery systems work by harnessing discarded or incidental heat to boil water to the point of becoming steam. That steam is used to run a turbine that generates electric energy.
Once this energy is generated, it can be used for any purpose, thus reducing overall energy consumption. A well designed heat recovery unit can harness between 50 and 90% of heat waste.
While the technology offers a clean and efficient way to reuse wasted heat, there are a number of factors preventing it from being more widespread. One of the most frequently encountered issues is the high start-up cost.
As with all highly specialized technologies, proper training is also an important requisite to implementing a waste heat recovery system. While there are 583,500 electricians in the United States , not all of them will have the understanding to interface with such a system.
Such limitations have not restricted the growth of the market in Europe, however. The Port of Rotterdam Authority in the Netherlands supplies heat to 16,000 homes using it’s own residual heat alone.
A new consortium of Swedish businesses has even launched an open innovation competition seeking to use the residual heat to bolster urban farming efforts.
While the United States is unlikely to see this level of commitment to waste heat recovery systems, the fact that 90% of new homes have ducted heating and cooling systems installed can make mass sustainable heating projects like the one in Rotterdam both attractive and viable.
For the time being, the growth outlook looks positive, even if it’s not quite at the level of its European counterpart. Despite this, some U.S. manufacturers have already discovered the benefits of heat waste recovery systems.
