In Kitakyushu City, Japan, an innovative project is turning waste into opportunity. Heat once lost from Shabondama Soap Co., Ltd. is now captured and stored in a Sunamp Central Bank Mini thermal battery. From there, it’s piped underground to Hirota Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. where it’s put back to work – heating chemicals.
This commercialisation experiment is led by IHI Corporation, a major engineering company and manufacturer headquartered in Tokyo, with the aim of cutting costs associated with industrial process heat in factories and significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The heat emitted from the boiler of Shabondama Soap Co., Ltd. factory is captured using a heat exchanger and stored in a Central Bank Mini, Sunamp’s phase change material thermal battery designed for up to 80 kWh of stored heat. The recovered heat is then stored in the Central Bank Mini – very efficiently, thanks to the extremely low heat losses of the product – before it travels through a 70-metre pipe to reach the factory of Hirota Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. There, the hot water is used to warm plastic drums containing chemicals and subsequently recycled.
This initiative is expected to significantly reduce the electricity consumption associated with industrial process heat in the factory of Hirota Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. This might result in the economic benefit for both Hirota Chemical Industry Co., Ltd. and IHI Corporation who intends to commercialise heat as a service.
Hiroyuki Otsuka, Director of IHI Business Development, said:
“This could mark a major leap toward turning waste heat into profit, with roughly 60% of industrial heat currently going unused. At the core of this project is Sunamp’s Central Bank Mini which helps adjust the timing difference between heat demand and supply. We intend to test this as a proof of concept for heat-as-a-service business model over a period of one month.”
Click here to watch the full video of the demonstration experiment published on the NHK news story.
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