FOUNDENERGY

Waste Heat Recovery Power Generation Based on ORC Technology in Foundry Industry

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 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'This project aims to significantly improve the competitive position of our SME foundry members within the SME-AG partner European Investment Casters’ Federation (EICF), Svenska Gjuteriföreningen (SG, Swedish foundry association), Croatian Chamber of Economy (CCE, with its Association of metalworks in Croatia that includes all foundries) and Foundry Association of the Basque Country and Navarre (AFV) by significantly cutting their operational and energy costs. At the same time we will benefit from the exclusive position to produce, commercialise and control the exploitation of an innovative cutting edge technology into the EU and worldwide markets. Also, important benefit is ecological improvement of our environment, e.g. less CO2 and heat disposal into atmosphere. Hence with this paper we are proposing a product that will still remain profitable even with future lower electricity energy tariffs through incentives, resulting with estimated benefit and savings for the SME-AG members for each year/foundry of about 170kEUR/year with additional 600 tons of CO2 savings/foundry/year. Therefore the strategic overall objective of the project is to develop a cost effective and low maintenance Waste Heat Recovery system for Power Generation in the Foundry Industry. The designed Waste Heat Recovery system (WHRS) will be based on ORC process, primarily attached to the waste heat sources within the foundry plants, ultimately to produce electrical energy and sell it directly to the power grids or use it for internal consumption purposes. One of the FoundEnergy secondary outputs is also production of hot water for various purposes and needs, including preheat of smelting components or housing hot water supply.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Researchers are developing a system to repurpose waste heat for electricity production in foundries.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

Forges and foundries require large amounts of thermal energy to function. Fuels are burnt to create this heat, much of which is released unused into the environment along with carbon dioxide pollution.

One solution, both economically and environmentally, would be to reuse excess or waste heat for electricity production or other internal applications. The 'Waste heat recovery power generation based on ORC technology in foundry industry' (http://www.foundenergy.eu (FOUNDENERGY)) project, which is funded by the EU, was set up to achieve this.

Project researchers are tasked with developing a cost-effective and low-maintenance waste energy recovery boiler (WERB) suited to the extreme environment of a foundry. The WERB will transfer thermal energy from the flue gases of the furnace to fluid inside an evaporator within a turbogenerator.

The first completed objective was the development of a protective coating for the WERB heat exchanging pipes. Researchers are now developing three different WERBs designed to function at different power ranges and in various situations.

Another part of the project is dedicated to building a complete waste heat recovery system (WHRS) for power production in foundries. An advanced guidance and control system for the WHRS is under development as well.

It is estimated that the implementation of such systems could significantly cut operational and energy costs while benefiting the environment. Once realised, the competitiveness of small and medium-sized foundries will be boosted significantly.