{"id":2135,"date":"2026-07-30T16:22:44","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/?p=2135"},"modified":"2026-07-30T16:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T16:27:09","slug":"how-can-industry-reduce-energy-costs-by-making-better-use-of-waste-heat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/how-can-industry-reduce-energy-costs-by-making-better-use-of-waste-heat\/","title":{"rendered":"How can industry reduce energy costs by making better use of waste heat?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Every day, large amounts of valuable thermal energy are rejected through industrial cooling systems instead of being put to further use.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Recovering and reusing this waste heat can significantly reduce energy consumption and operating costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Today, waste heat recovery is typically achieved using heat exchangers. They transfer thermal energy from a hot fluid circuit to a colder one. However, this is only possible while both circuits are operating simultaneously. If waste heat is generated hours before it is needed again, a heat exchanger alone cannot make use of this energy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>The challenge: matching waste heat availability with heat demand<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In many industrial processes, waste heat becomes available hours before it is needed again. Recovering the heat is often not the main challenge. The real challenge is matching the timing of heat generation with heat demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The conventional solution is to store the recovered heat in large hot-water storage tanks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Although hot-water storage is a proven and widely used technology, it also has several practical limitations:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Large installation footprint<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Relatively low energy density<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Continuously decreasing outlet temperature during discharge<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Often custom-designed for each application<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Water treatment and corrosion protection may be required<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>A different approach: thermal batteries<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Instead of storing thermal energy as sensible heat in large volumes of water, thermal batteries store the recovered energy in a phase change material (PCM).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Unlike a heat exchanger, a thermal battery can store heat and release it only when it is actually needed\u2014not only when it is available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Compared with conventional hot-water storage, thermal batteries can offer several advantages in many applications:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Smaller installation footprint<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Higher energy density<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Nearly constant discharge temperature<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Modular, standardized design<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Scalable from a few tens of kWh to multi-MWh thermal energy storage systems<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Lower maintenance and operating requirements, as water treatment, scaling and corrosion management are eliminated<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During charging, thermal energy is stored as latent heat while the PCM undergoes a phase change. During discharge, the stored energy is released at a nearly constant temperature. This bridges the time gap between waste heat generation and heat demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result is a compact thermal energy storage system that enables a significantly larger share of the available waste heat to be utilized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Practical example<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A project at a canning factory, where food is sterilized in autoclaves, illustrates this concept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During sterilization, the cans are heated with steam to approximately <strong>120\u00b0C<\/strong>. They must then be cooled before further processing. During this cooling phase, a large amount of thermal energy is transferred to the cooling water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Without heat recovery, this energy would simply be rejected through the cooling system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A heat exchanger integrated into the thermal battery extracts this waste heat from the hot cooling water and stores it in the PCM during the cooling phase. At the beginning of the next sterilization cycle, the stored energy is used to preheat the boiler feedwater before it is further heated to steam generation temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By bridging the time gap between waste heat availability and heat demand, the thermal battery enables heat that would otherwise be wasted to be reused efficiently while simultaneously reducing the boiler&#8217;s energy demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In this application, the system achieved annual energy savings of approximately <strong>2 GWh<\/strong>, reducing the process&#8217;s thermal energy consumption by around <strong>20%<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Where thermal batteries deliver the greatest benefit<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Many industrial processes face the same challenge: valuable waste heat is available\u2014but not when it is needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By decoupling waste heat availability from heat demand, thermal batteries enable a significantly larger share of the available waste heat to be utilized. This reduces operating costs and CO\u2082 emissions while improving overall system efficiency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If your process involves heating, cooling, waste heat, or highly variable thermal loads, there is a good chance that thermal energy storage could improve its efficiency.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every day, large amounts of valuable thermal energy are rejected through industrial cooling systems instead of being put to further use. Recovering and reusing this waste heat can significantly reduce energy consumption and operating costs. Today, waste heat recovery is typically achieved using heat exchangers. They transfer thermal energy from a hot fluid circuit to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1562,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2135"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2136,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2135\/revisions\/2136"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onyx-energy.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}