Smart operation of industrial heating

Industrial heating processes offer many opportunities to shift loads and add flexibility to power grids. Examples include ice storage in the food, beverage and dairy industries, which can release cooling when the demand at an industrial site is below the peak; this will reduce the electricity demand in the power system and enable industrial facilities to both use and produce energy as “prosumers”. Similar approaches can be used for heating. To this end, transmission system operators (and, to a lesser degree, distribution system operators) need to co-ordinate with their major industrial clients to identify loads that could be shifted.

Smart operation of industrial heating allows greater use of renewable energy to provide heating and cooling. It also increases the energy efficiency of industrial processes by utilising hot and cold streams that would otherwise have been wasted, and reduces the electricity demand and investments needed in grids.