Mobile energy stored as heat

IDRIC Project MIP 4.1

Swansea University
TATA Steel
Swansea University
TATA Steel

Background

  • Heavy Industry releases up to 50% of consumed energy as waste heat
  • Tata Steel Port Talbot steelworks produces waste heat at a continuous 760MW
  • Capturing all energy is the equivalent to heating 500,000 homes & offsetting 1MT of CO2 annually
Prof D Worsley

Prof D Worsley

Principal Investigator
Swansea University

Project Team

Swansea University:

Dr.S Hosouli
Dr J Elvins

Aim

  • Develop materials to harvest energy within targeted temperature ranges
  • Optimisation of heat capture and reutilisation with laboratory scale reactors
  • Modelling the system energy flows from industrial site and determining the heat capture efficiency, capacity and impact, both ecologically and economically

More Detail

Mobile Energy Stored as Heat (MESH) aims to address the challenge of industrial waste heat recovery, storage & reuse using novel heat storage materials (HSM) which store energy indefinitely. The objective is to move heat from industrial regions to where there is demand and one clear target is home heating which must be delivered in new-build without gas by 2025. The focussed industrial site is a 760MW waste heat resource equivalent to over 500,000 home heating systems responsible for >1Mt CO2 per annum.

The MESH research work programme will underpin key decarbonisation challenges: utilisation of waste streams; development of new energy storage materials and systems; improved energy efficiency and system design & scale-up modelling to accelerate and de-risk potential implementation across multiple industrial clusters.

MESH unites leading UK academic partners with strong track records and using layered funding from multiple sources that supports contiguous TRL development. It cements a strong complimentary collaboration between Swansea and Birmingham Universities and the SPECIFIC IKC with IDRIC partners. Industrial partners will have the opportunity to analyse their waste heat utilisation potential leading to decarbonizing their operations through internal heat re-use or through valorisation of waste heat to supply surrounding communities.

Meet the Team

 

Team 1

Dr J Elvins

Swansea University

Team 1

Dr S Hosouli

Swansea University

Team 1

Dr J Elvins

Swansea University

Team 1

Dr S Hosouli

Swansea University

Case Study

Planned Outputs

  • Quantified the ability of thermal storage materials to capture waste heat energy from low and medium temperature industrial sources
  • Assessed the magnitude of energy available to be captured from Tata Steels’ UK operations
  • Developed a model to measure the 1) Technical 2) Economic and 3) Environmental viability when using thermal storage materials to capture waste heat

Investigate Further