Reusing the waste heat from industrial companies

Problem

Most of the global greenhouse gas emissions are caused by energy production based on fossil fuels. The industrial sector uses almost half of the energy used in Finland, and most of this energy goes to waste. Plants often get rid of waste heat by cooling the surplus heat into air or water. The reuse of waste heat has been limited for a long time, since the plants generating it are complex, and there has been no single solution provider to solve the problem.

Solution: reusing the waste heat from industrial companies

Calefa creates turnkey solutions for the reuse of waste heat from industry. With the help of such solutions, waste heat is reused by redirecting the excess heat from industrial processes either to the customer company’s own use or to the district heating network instead of wasting it as condensed water or air. By reusing its waste heat, the customer company can reduce both its energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

By using Calefa’s solutions, industrial sites have so far succeeded in producing energy savings amounting to almost 200,000 megawatt hours and reducing their carbon dioxide emissions by more than 40 million tonnes (figures from January 2019).

Calefa’s revenue logic and benefits

Calefa sells its solution as a direct investment, where the customer buys the system fully installed, by hire purchase or using an ESCO model, where the charges are based on the achieved energy savings. In addition, Calefa sells system servicing and maintenance as service. Currently, Calefa is the only operator on the market that takes overall responsibility for the construction of waste heat recovery systems from design to implementation. Therefore, the customers only deal with Calefa, which also enhances Calefa’s internal project management.

Benefits to customers and end users

Calefa’s energy recycling solution enables significant reductions in the amount of purchased energy. This enhances the profitability, competitiveness and environmental friendliness of the customer’s operations: the reuse of waste energy reduces the customer’s energy costs and carbon dioxide emissions, boosts production and improves working conditions. Furthermore, customers may benefit from the competitive edge provided by environmental friendliness, because environmental friendliness is a rapidly growing and important selling point for companies.