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Waste Heat Cost Benefit Assessment

In most northern European Countries waste heat is put to far better use than it is in the UK. Article 14(5) of the EU Energy Efficiency Directive was transposed in UK and Welsh Law in March 2015. And on the back of this new legislation the Environment Agency are releasing guidance on the use of waste heat that will apply to industrial heat producers over 20 MW.

When building new or refurbishing old facilities, there will be requirement to carry out cost benefit analysis to determine whether connection to a point of heat demand is required, under the terms of the guidance.

Exemptions from Guidance

The follow installation types will likely be exempt from the guideline requirements for Waste Heat Cost Benefit Assessment

Who will be Affected?

The cost benefit assessments will be performed for new electricity generating plants and new industrial installations outputting waste heat at a useful temperature. Depending on the location 65 degrees Celsius is thought to "useful". Waste heat cost benefit assessments will also be need to be completed if the a facility / installation is likely to be substantially refurbished. It is unlikely this would include regular maintenance procedures, but would probably include swapping out plant for a different system. A numerically value set to define substantial is greater than 50% costs of a new build.

How does the Waste Heat Cost Benefit Assessment Work?

Heating or cooling demand points will have to be considered within a 15 kilometer radius, or less if the plant / installation is under 3.9 MW. All demand points over 100KW for hot water and 500kw for steam will have to be considered. These values et in the guidance were added during the transposition process and do not form part of the original European legislation.

The guidance also considers the decreased dispersal of flu gases as a result of waste heat usage. If the project is shown to be financially viable then the Environment Agency will require that it is implemented.

If you would like SWEL to undertake the your Waste Heat Cost Benefit Assessment Work then please get in touch.

Image result for wikimedia waste heat

Image: Alan Zomerfeld [CC BY-SA 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons