Heat Recovery: It's There for the Taking

If you owned a cow, would you throw out the milk your cow produced only to go to the supermarket to buy your milk? Probably not. What’s the point of having the cow then? The same thing holds true with your air compressor (sort of; air compressors don’t produce milk, and we’re actually not even working on making that happen. Yet.). The point of all of this is, if you’re getting something for free that you would otherwise have to pay for, why would you ever pay for it?

Well, that’s exactly what we see a lot of with compressed air systems. Heat (the milk in our analogy) is a natural byproduct of the process of compressing air (the cow, if you will). Within many compressed air systems, only about 15 percent of the energy input is ultimately delivered as compressed air energy.

In order for a compressed air system to function properly, that heat naturally produced in the process must be removed before the air can be moved through a piping system. The more heat energy that can be recovered and re-used throughout this process, the greater overall efficiency the compressed air system will exhibit. The temperature level of the recovered energy helps determine its end-use applications and, ultimately, its value.

As much as 90 percent of that heat can be recovered for use in your operation. In optimal conditions, heat recovery and use in other areas of the facility can provide a 100 percent return on the cost to operate the compressor. That means, instead of paying energy costs associated with things like producing hot water for washrooms, equipment cleaning, or directing warm air into a workspace, warehouse, loading dock or entryway, you could be capturing the heat from your compressed air, offsetting the other energy costs associated with these or other creative solutions. That’s like saying you never need to go to the store for more milk, which will also save you a lot of dough.

How are you using the heat from your compressed air system at your facility?