oa Combined heat and power generation using industrial zones waste heat

The basic materials industry contributes significantly to global energy demand. The efficient utilization of energy in these industries is essential to sustainable development. In numerous emerging countries, such industrial activity is concentrated in industrial zones. Typically, significant energy savings can be achieved through the exploitation of symbiotic relationships between companies within such zones. The identification of symbiotic relationships calls for systems approaches to energy integration, which have been identified as crucial enablers of sustainable solutions in the basic materials industries. This work establishes a systematic approach to target heat and power cogeneration potentials within industrial zones and to design the corresponding optimal waste heat recovery and reuse networks. The initial focus of the approach is on retrofit solutions that reuse heat and extract power through existing utility systems. The approach assumes that quantities of heat from source plants, which are reaching sink plants, are only limited by heat requirements of sink plants. This work extends our previous efforts by developing an approach to reveal combined heat and power opportunities that increase power production and offset heating requirements. The proposed approach enables targeting and concrete integration options based on economic criteria. The application of the approach is illustrated with a case study.