Oilon’s intense 15-year R&D with indus­trial heat pumps is now bearing fruit.

Take any inter­na­tional scen­ario for redu­cing carbon emis­sions, and you will see heat pumps in a key role. Accord­ing to the Inter­na­tional Energy Agency IEA, for example, heat pumps will cover 50 percent of the heating of build­ings by 2045. The agency pre­dicts the monthly amount of installed heat pumps will soar from 1.5 million to 3–5 million in 2030.

The reason for the spec­tac­u­lar growth is simple: heat pump tech­no­logy is a very effi­cient means to reduce our depend­ence on fossil fuels and to cut carbon emis­sions from the energy sector and industry. Accord­ing to IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2021 report, wide util­iz­a­tion of heat pumps is com­puls­ory to meet the require­ments of the Paris Agree­ment on climate change.

Energy com­pan­ies take on large heat pumps

Indus­trial heat pumps func­tion accord­ing to the same prin­ciple as the common air-​to-air heat pumps for con­sumers, but the amount of energy pro­duced can be thou­sand­fold. Indus­trial heat pumps typ­ic­ally use waste heat or the heat energy absorbed in the outside air as their heat source. Large heat pumps can produce tem­per­at­ures as high as 120 Celcius very cost-​efficiently.

“This is now par­tic­u­larly inter­est­ing to energy com­pan­ies who wish to use large heat pumps to replace coal and other fuels. Due to emis­sions trading schemes, climate reg­u­la­tion, and brand repu­ta­tion, the com­pan­ies are under great pres­sure to reduce their emis­sions,” says Martti Kukkola, Chief Busi­ness Officer, Oilon.

It is also about making a profit. The price hikes of coal, oil, and natural gas during 2021 have left many com­pan­ies pon­der­ing altern­at­ives. Oilon sees this phe­nomenon in the form of inquir­ies from new cus­tom­ers.

“The new factory is just the begin­ning”

The revenue of Oilon’s indus­trial heat pump busi­ness doubled in 2019 and again in 2020. In 2021, the growth con­tin­ues although pro­duc­tion has been slightly slowed by delays in the supply of com­pon­ents due to the COVID pan­demic.

Oilon cel­eb­rated the inaug­ur­a­tion of a new factory in Kokkola, Finland, in Novem­ber 2021. The factory is ded­ic­ated to man­u­fac­tur­ing indus­trial heat pumps.

“The pro­spects are so good that we wanted to quad­ruple the pro­duc­tion capa­city. Now we are capable of pro­du­cing around 600 indus­trial heat pumps per year. This is only the begin­ning, though. We will prob­ably have to expand the capa­city already around 2025,” Kukkola says.

Glob­ally, Oilon is best known for burners, but Kukkola pre­dicts indus­trial heat pumps will be Oilon’s largest busi­ness unit in the future.

Cus­tom­ers inquire about 100 MW pro­jects

Oilon has inves­ted heavily in the R&D of large heat pumps for the last 15 years. The Coef­fi­cient of Per­form­ance (COP) has risen con­tinu­ously and reaches 10 in Chill­Heat solu­tions when both heating and cooling are pro­duced. Not many man­u­fac­tur­ers can reach tem­per­at­ures of 120 degrees Celsius.

“The cus­tom­ers have taken note of the devel­op­ment, which is great. Nev­er­the­less, there is still a lot to learn about the tech­no­logy. For example, requests for quo­ta­tions may include the require­ment of the largest pos­sible heat pumps although several smaller units can often be better. Our job is to find out which solu­tion is the best choice for a par­tic­u­lar cus­tomer in a par­tic­u­lar project.”

The optimal solu­tion depends on the applic­a­tion, heat source, the tem­per­at­ure of the required heat or cooling, cir­cum­stances, the prop­erty, and many other factors. The Oilon Selec­tion Tool soft­ware helps cus­tom­ers to find the right solu­tions with Oilon’s experts.

The name­plate power rating of Oilon’s indus­trial heat pumps is from 30 kW to 2 MW. By con­nect­ing several heat pumps, “trains” are pro­duced, and the com­bined output can be tens of mega­watts. The series con­nec­tion also helps to optim­ize part-​load effi­ciency and overall per­form­ance.

“Cus­tom­ers are more and more inter­ested in large heat pump systems of up to 100 MW and more”, Kukkola says.

Energy from two kilo­met­ers under­ground

All of Oilon’s indus­trial heat pumps are pro­duced in the new factory in Kokkola, Finland. In 2020, four out of five pumps were expor­ted. The most import­ant target regions are Europe, China, and South America. A new prom­ising market is North America, where Oilon is cur­rently opening sales.

Applic­a­tions for indus­trial heat pumps come in a wide variety. Oilon’s ref­er­ence pro­jects can be found via the links:

  • Dis­trict heating. Outside air or waste heat from cooling, for example, is used as the heat source. Indus­trial heat pumps are typ­ic­ally used to replace the power pro­duced by power sta­tions in the dis­trict heating network. When coal is being replaced, the emis­sion reduc­tions are at their largest.
  • Com­bined heating and cooling. Oilon Chill­Heat systems produce green heat and cooling for build­ings sim­ul­tan­eously. Property-​specific heat pumps are a con­veni­ent solu­tion when the facil­ity is located outside dis­trict heating and cooling net­works.
  • Util­iz­ing flue gases. The flue gases of heating are dir­ec­ted to a heat pump which removes the heat energy from the gases to the water cir­cu­lat­ing in the heating system.
  • Battery parks. Large battery parks of hun­dreds of mega­watts in capa­city are becom­ing common around the world. They are needed to bring flex­ib­il­ity to elec­tri­city grids with fluc­tu­at­ing wind and solar energy. Indus­trial heat pumps are used to cool the bat­ter­ies and remove their waste heat to a dis­trict heating network, for example.
  • Recyc­ling energy in indus­trial facil­it­ies. Indus­trial pro­cesses produce vast amounts of waste heat that is often dir­ec­ted straight out of the facil­ity without being util­ized in any way. A better idea is to recover the waste heat with indus­trial heat pumps. With large heat pumps, the waste heat can be turned into 120-degree Celcius heat. The same pump system can also be used to produce cooling energy.
  • Medium-​deep geo­thermal wells. At the bottom of 2km-deep geo­thermal wells, the tem­per­at­ure is a steady 40 degrees Celsius. Large heat pumps are used to trans­fer the heat to a dis­trict heating system, which can decrease the carbon emis­sions of heating by up to 95 percent.
  • Food industry. In food factor­ies, dairies, meat-​processing plants, and many other facil­it­ies in the food industry, heat and cooling are needed at the same time. Indus­trial heat pumps are a cost-​efficient and envir­on­ment­ally sound solu­tion. The pumps typ­ic­ally use waste heat as the heat source or dir­ectly produce cooling whenever needed.