Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252

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Energy Conversion and Management

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ORC waste heat recovery in European energy intensive industries:

Energy and GHG savings
F. Campana a,⇑, M. Bianchi a, L. Branchini a, A. De Pascale a, A. Peretto a, M. Baresi b, A. Fermi b, N. Rossetti b,
R. Vescovo b
a
DIN University of Bologna, Viale del Risorgimento 2, 40136 Bologna, Italy
b
Turboden Srl, via Cernaia, 10, Brescia, Italy

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) is a technology with important opportunities in heat recovery from energy
Received 9 February 2013 intensive industrial processes. This paper represents the first comprehensive estimate of ORC units that
Accepted 16 July 2013 can be installed in cement, steel, glass and oil&gas industries in the 27 countries of the European Union
based on an accurate methodology related to real plants in operation or under construction. An evalua-
tion of energy savings, depending on the number of operating hours per year and of the consequent
Keywords: decrease in CO2 emission and electricity expenditure, is also provided. The study, carried out in the
Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
framework of an European research project on heat recovery in energy intensive industries, found that,
Waste heat recovery
Cement
in the most convenient considered scenario, up to about 20,000 GW h of thermal energy per year can be
Steel recovered and 7.6 M ton of CO2 can be saved by the application of ORC technology to the investigated and
Glass most promising industrial sectors.
Oil&gas Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Energy audit

1. Introduction while steam-cycle need more constant conditions. A thermody-

Many studies regarding the Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) tech-
nology have been delivered in last decades, but only in recent years
different industrial players have become interested in its applica-
tions. This is mainly due to different factors such as: ORC technol-
ogy upgrades, energy prices rising, more stringent environmental
protection and energy efficiency policies, such as the European
‘‘20-20-20’’ Climate and Energy package, defining targets of pri-
mary energy consumption and Greenhouse Gases (GHG) reduction.
For a comparison between ORC technology and others – that is
Stirling engines, Thermo-Electric, Micro Rakine Cycle and Inverted
Brayton Cycle – a review is provided in [1]. The study highlighted
that ORC is the best performing technology for heat recovery and
power generation using heat sources at temperature of 200–
400 °C. Obviously, ORC conversion efficiency is limited (heat-to-
electricity efficiency of larger recuperated cycles ORC systems typ-
ically can reach values up to around 20%), if compared with con-
ventional and advanced power plant technologies [2–5], but a
potential in low/medium temperature waste heat recovery exists
and should be quantified. Moreover, waste heat flows are discon-
tinuous, thus the cycle needs to be flexible. ORC systems already
in function can operate at partial load condition [6] up to 10%,
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 051 20 93431.
E-mail address: francesco.campana4@gmail.com (F. Campana).
namic analysis and comparison of different ORC simple and ad-
vanced layout configurations and fluid selection has been carried
out in many publications [7–13], where the recuperated arrange-
ment and fluids such as R245fa, Siloxanes and Hydrocarbons have
been highlighted as best available design selections for high-grade
enthalpy heat recovery. For an introduction to actual ORC applica-
tions and economic evaluations, see [13–25].
Another important issue concerns the selection of the most
promising industrial processes in term of energy recovery and
GHG emission mitigation. SILC project published a report compar-
ing industries involved in ETS (Emission Trading System) that
could benefit by heat recovery initiatives to reduce GHG emissions
[26]. A comparison of different industries was performed, in the
framework of the H-REII project [27], in order to establish which
fit better ORC opportunities. Results show that cement, glass, steel
and oil&gas industries involve the most suitable processes for heat
recovery to power. In the same project, an estimate of the ORC
power that could be installed in European industries was also pro-
vided, based on the GHG emissions allowances per year allocated
to every country in the framework of the ETS [28]. While thermo-
dynamic analysis can be found in many references [10–24,29–32],
this paper is focused on the ORC potential power output that can
be installed in the existing plants of cement, steel, glass and oil&-
gas industry, located in the 27 countries of the European Union
(EU27). In many countries authorities are working to remove

0196-8904/$ - see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2013.07.041
 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252
Nomenclature
CC clinker cooler
EAF Electric Arc Furnace
Erec energy recovery
ETS Emission Trading System
GCS Gas Compressor Station
GHG greenhouse gases
GSF Gas Storage Fields
GT gas turbine
ho operating hours per year
barriers for combined heat and power (CHP) applications. In their
wake, also heat recovery policies have been proposed [33]. Lowe
and Gereffi describe in [34] new opportunities offered by a new
sector, obtained by taking into account all firms involved into heat
recovery systems manufacturing. Their study presents a value
chain (Fig. 1) for applications of industrial waste energy recovery.
The value chain is divided into four segments, where many in-
volved players and new job opportunities can be identified. Activ-
ities that would benefits of new heat recovery projects are not only
related to industry: funding for R&D, GHG emissions reduction and
job opportunities are clear examples of social improvements. En-
ergy efficiency policies [35], e.g. White Certificates in Italy [36],
industrial category initiatives like SPIRE 2030 [37] and Sustainable
Industry Low Carbon Initiative [38] are all helping the economic
sustainability of heat recovery. In this framework, a first large scale
estimation on heat recovery potential by means of ORC in energy
intensive industries sectors is performed in this paper, based on
a reduced group of input key parameters and on a large number
of installations, in order to quantify the amount of residual avail-
able electric energy fully recoverable in EU27.
The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2
explains the methodology followed in order to estimate ORC power
potential in the selected industries. Section 3 presents the amount
of installable ORC power in EU27 cement plants and the recover-
able energy – as a function of plants operating hours – and the con-
sequent savings in energy, costs and GHG emissions. Section 4
presents the same estimation for steel industry – Electric Arc Fur-
naces and rolling mills, while Section 5 is related to glass industry.
Section 6 presents ORC potential data for European Gas Compres-
sor Stations (GCS). Finally, conclusions are given in Section 7.
Fig. 1. Heat recovery value chain [22].
245
H-REII heat recovery from energy intensive industries
nA number of energy audits available for a process
ORC Organic Rankine Cycle
PCP Process Capacity Parameter
PORC ORC power to install
PRS preheating
rA energy audit ratio
rP ORC specific power of the process
2. Methodology for ORC potential assessment
The methodology followed in order to estimate on large scale
the ORC potential in EU27 industries is summarized in Fig. 2 and
explained in the following points:
1. The most interesting industrial processes were identified. The
selected industries are: (i) steel, (ii) cement, (iii) glass and (iv)
oil&gas; this selection was done based on their considerable
energy consumption. In each selected industry, the most inter-
esting processes were identified using as key factors the
amount of wasted thermal power, the source cleanness and
the high number of operating hours. For the steel industry,
selected processes are: Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) and rolling
mills; in cement industry, clinker production is considered; in
glass industry, float glass production and finally gas turbines
in Gas Compressor Stations (GCS) and Gas Storage Fields (GSF)
are considered in oil&gas industry. For most of these processes
there is an operating ORC system as reference.
2. For every process, the most influent parameter for an estima-
tion of the potential ORC output power, named here Process
Capacity Parameter (PCP), was identified. Usually this is a daily
or hourly capacity. The selected PCP is described in Table 1 for
every considered process.
3. The value of PCP was detected for every plant of the identified
processes, namely: EAF, rolling mills, clinker production, float
glass and gas turbines in GCS and in GSF.
4. Available energy audits were analyzed. The number of consid-
ered plants and of available audits for every process is shown
in Table 2. Energy audits provided the ORC power installed, or
Fig. 2. Methodology of analysis scheme.
246 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252

Table 1 heat-to-power conversion efficiency, correlated with the heat

Process Capacity Parameter (PCP) description. sources temperature in all the considered processes, according to
Industry Process PCP description Unit [1]. Audits results are plotted in Fig. 3.
Steel EAF Tap weight t
Steel Rolling mills Reheating furnace capacity t/h 5. For each considered process, the average value of all the avail-
Cement Clinker prod. Daily capacity t/day able rA values, i.e. the ORC specific power related to the Process,
Glass Float glass Furnace (tank) capacity t/day named here (rP), was obtained as:
Oil&gas GCS and GSF Gas turbine power MW
1X
rP ¼ rA ð2Þ
nA A
Table 2
Number of plants and energy audits considered. 6. For the i-th plant, the installable ORC power (PORC)i was calcu-
lated multiplying the corresponding value of PCP for the value
Process No. of plants considered No. of audits analyzed
of rP related to the considered process:
EAF 190 3
Rolling mills 209 5 ðPORC Þi ¼ ðPCPÞi  rP ð3Þ
Clinker prod. 241 21
Float Glass 58 5 7. The operating hours (ho) of the industrial process were esti-
GCS and GSF 613 10 mated: a minimum value of 5000 and a maximum of 8000
operating hours per year were considered.
8. Energy recovered for the i-th plant was calculated as:

ðErec Þi ¼ ðPORC Þi  ho ð4Þ

potentially installable, in a considered plant analyzed during a
Then, output-based [39] emission factors and energy costs for
feasibility study. For every ORC system mentioned in the audits,
different countries, shown in Table 3 [40,41], were used, in order
the specific power rA, ratio of ORC power (PORC) over the value of
to estimate the avoided GHG emissions and cost savings. Finally,
its PCP, was calculated:
results were aggregated for country and then for process.
 
P ORC
rA ¼ ð1Þ 3. Waste heat recovery in EU27 cement plants: ORC potential
PCP A
In order to calculate rA for the energy audit cases in which the The first examples of waste heat recovery to power in the ce-
ORC system was not implemented, the used input information ment industry are reported on the Best Available Technique Refer-
was the available thermal power (i.e., both gas temperature and ences (BREF) for cement industry [42] both by means of ORC and
mass flow rate) of the topping industrial process. In these cases, steam-cycle technology. In last five years other ORC heat recovery
PORC to be used in Eq. (2.1) was obtained by assuming the ORC plants have been starting up [43]. A simplified scheme of an ORC

Fig. 3. Audit results; top: effect of PCP on ORC power and on specific power; bottom: hot source temperature and mass flow rate.
 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252 247

Table 3 Table 4
Emission factors and energy cost in EU27 [40,41]. EU27 cement plants location and capacity [44].

Country Emission factor (t CO2/MW h) Energy cost (€/kW h) Country No. of plants Nominal capacity (Mt/yr)
Italy 0.405 € 0.12 Spain 38 48.3
Germany 0.503 € 0.10 Italy 59 38.6
Spain 0.430 € 0.08 Germany 33 28.8
France 0.092 € 0.07 France 31 21.6
UK 0.496 € 0.09 Greece 8 14.5
Belgium 0.254 € 0.09 Poland 11 14.0
Austria 0.161 € 0.10 Portugal 6 10.8
Czech Rep. 0.630 € 0.10 UK 12 10.4
Others 0.483 € 0.09 Others 61 60.8
Total EU27 259 247.8

unit installed in a cement factory is reported in Fig. 4. Raw materi-
als are preheated in multiple cyclones which use exhausted gases
coming from the rotary kiln. Thermal energy of these gases
(300–450 °C) can be recovered by means of a heat exchanger (1
in Fig. 4). After being cooked in rotary kiln at 1200 °C, clinker has
to be cooled. The second heat source is represented by gases com-
ing from this clinker cooler (300 °C) that are recovered by another
heat exchanger (2). Usually heat exchangers work with diathermic
oil which maintains temperature at a stable value. Then heat is ex-
changed from diathermic oil to organic fluid and electricity is gen-
erated by ORC unit.
There are 259 cement plants in EU27, for a total amount of 389
kilns, with an overall capacity of 247.81 millions of metric tons
[44], located as reported in Table 4. Among these plants, 11 have
not been considered because of their wet process: for this type of
kiln, it is not convenient to install ORC systems, due to technical
problems for the heat exchanges. For other 19 plants, the process
type is not described: for 7 of those neither nominal capacity is
provided, thus it was not possible to estimate the ORC power.
For the 12 over 19 plants with given annual capacity but without
process type specification, we decided to proceed with the algo-
rithm relying on BREF for cement industry [42], which reports that
only the 2.5% of kilns works with wet process. According to [42]
wet kilns will be replaced by dry ones, thus it is possible to con-
sider them as dry kilns, in a future perspective. Eventually, the total
number of cement plant considered is 241 out of 259.
The PCP for cement industry was expressed in daily capacity. In
order to estimate the daily capacity, the annual nominal capacity
was used; a conservative representative capacity factor of 0.8 (a ce-
ment plant has typically a continuous process at high production
rate) and a production stop of one month a year for maintenance
were considered.
A total of 21 energy audits were analyzed and the correspond-
ing rA were calculated. Results are depicted in Fig. 5, reporting the
rA values for the 21 plants. Plants can be distinguished depending
on the recovered heat source: there are cement plants in which
it is possible to recover heat only from pre-hating cyclones (PRS,
component 1 in Fig. 4) or from clinker cooler gases (CC, component
2 in Fig. 4) or from both the sources (PRS + CC). Differences in rA
values may be related to many factors affecting the actual installa-
ble ORC power, such as raw material humidity rate, average exter-
nal temperature, number of cyclones, year of startup, etc. The
calculated value of rP results equal to 1.01 kW per ton/day of pro-
duced clinker. Referring to Italian plants, the adopted rP value is
0.75 kW per ton/day of produced clinker, the average value of rA re-
lated to this country (11 audits). The value of PCP of all the

Fig. 4. ORC in cement process.

248 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252

Table 6
Energy recovered, emission and cost savings in cement industry.

Country Energy recovery Emission avoided Cost savings (mln

(GW h/yr) (103 t CO2/y) €/yr)
5000 h 8000 h 5000 h 8000 h 5000 h 8000 h
IT 433 693 175.5 280.8 53.9 86.3
GE 351 562 176.7 282.7 36.0 57.6
ES 586 938 252.1 403.4 47.8 76.4
FR 250 400 23.0 36.8 18.5 29.6
UK 126 202 62. 7 100.3 11.1 17.8
BE 54 86 13.6 21.8 4.7 7.5
AU 52 84 8.4 13.5 5.5 8.8
CZ 64 102 40.3 64.5 6.6 10.5
Oth 953 1525 460.2 736.4 76.0 121.5
EU27 2.870 4.592 1212 1.940 260.1 416.2

processes and techniques in semi-finished casting production.

Fig. 5. ORC at the bottoming of an EAF process. ORC application is considered more suitable for heat recovering
from the exhaust gas of Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) and of rolling
mills that will be analyzed separately. In Fig. 6 a simplified process
collected plants was multiplied by rP. Results, aggregated by coun-
scheme of an ORC unit installed at the bottoming of an EAF is re-
try, are shown in Table 5. According to the followed calculation
ported. Three different layouts can be conceived: heat exchangers
methodology we estimate that over 576 MW of ORC power can
can be placed just outside the furnace (300–1600 °C), before the
be installed in EU27 cement industry. The annual energy savings
quenching tower (200–900 °C) or recovering heat from the fluid
was also estimated, assuming a range between 5000 and 8000
used in the quenching tower. Inlet gases into conditioning system
operating hours per year, in order to consider variations in cement
have temperature values of 150–350 °C [46]. Unlike cement or
production due to market fluctuations. This energy recovery allows
glass process, EAFs work in cycle of almost one hour each (tap-
avoiding the purchase of electricity from national grid and the con-
to-tap-time), thus ORC has an automatic control that follows the
sequent GHG emissions (see Table 6). Considering only EU27 ce-
melting cycle.
ment plants, an amount between 2.87 and 4.59 TW h per year
190 EAF are located in EU27, 11 of them are currently in idle
can be recovered, i.e. around 0.46% of the electricity consumption
(Table 7). Process Capacity Parameter (PCP) was identified in tap
in European industry in 2010 [45]. The corresponding average va-
weight expressed in tonnes. Considering an EAF cycle of almost
lue of CO2 avoided emissions, equal to almost 1.5 million metric
one hour, PCP can even considered an hourly capacity. Only three
tons, represents the 0.44% of the total amount of CO2 emitted in
energy audits are available: one of those is related to Riesa plant
2010 by EU27 industry [45]. At current electricity prices for indus-
(Germany) which is under construction within H-REII Demo pro-
try (see Table 2), European cement plants owners could save be-
ject. For these three audits, the average ratio of ORC power over
tween 260 and 416 million euro every year. Considering an
PCP is 27.8 kW per ton processed: considering few differences in
average value of 3 million euro per installed MW, the market size
EAF processes, this value has been adopted as rP. No EAFs were dis-
of installations reaches over one billion euro. There are many fac-
carded, neither those which are in idle at the moment. Regarding
tors to take into consideration for further developments in ORC
to rolling mills, scenario is more various. These machineries can
applications in EU27 cement industry: (i) global trend in cement
be grouped depending on process type (hot or cold mills) and
production, consumption and trade, with the increasing impor-
depending on the semi-finished product (blooms, slabs, wire rods,
tance of developing countries as a market players; (ii) energy effi-
plates, etc.). VDEh Database [47] provide data for blooming and
ciency policies, supporting such installations; (iii) the increasing
slabbing mills (15), billet mills (30), light section (53), medium sec-
interest in alternative fuels, affecting the economic energy
tion (29) and heavy section (19) mills, hot strip mills (44), wire rod
scenario.

4. Waste heat recovery in EU27 steel plants: ORC potential

In cement industry, processes and plants can be considered

standard. In steel industry, on the contrary, there are many

Table 5
ORC power estimate for EU27 cement factories.

Country Daily capacity (103 t/day) rP ((MW day)/t) PORC (MW)

Italy 111.7 0.75 86.7
Germany 69.8 1.01 70.3
Spain 116.5 1.01 117.3
France 49.6 1.01 49.9
UK 25.1 1.01 25.3
Belgium 10.7 1.01 10.7
Austria 10.4 1.01 10.5
Czech Rep. 12.7 1.01 12.8
Others 189.3 1.01 192.5
Total EU27 595.9 575.9
Fig. 6. ORC at the bottoming of an EAF process.
 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252 249

Table 7 Table 9
Number and nominal capacity of EU27 EAF and rolling mills [47]. Energy recovery, emission and cost savings in EU27 steel industry.

Country No. EAF Capac. (Mt/yr) No. rolling mills Capac. (Mt/yr) Country Energy Recovery Emission avoided Cost savings (mln
(GW hh/yr) (103 t CO2/yr) €/yr)
Italy 40 23.4 63 35.8
Spain 29 18.5 42 21.8 5000 h 8000 h 5000 h 8000 h 5000 h 8000 h
Germany 27 16.7 52 50.8
IT 572 916 206.9 331.0 71.3 114.0
France 20 7.6 38 31.3
GE 781 1250 343.5 549.6 80.0 128.0
UK 8 4.9 31 15.9
ES 557 891 184.1 294.6 45.4 72.6
Poland 9 4.5 19 9.7
FR 365 583 28.8 46.1 27.0 43.3
Belgium 7 4.7 9 16.6
UK 237 379 102.2 163.5 20.9 33.4
Romania 6 3.2 12 9.0
BE 272 436 66.8 107.0 23.7 38.0
Greece 5 3.5 6 3.2
AU 82 132 11.2 17.9 8.6 13.8
Czech Rep. 9 0.5 12 7.4
CZ 50 80 27.2 43.5 5.1 8.2
Others 30 14.0 78 50.2
Oth 824 1318 380.5 608.8 62.2 99.6
Total 190 101.7 362 251.8
EU27 3740 5984 1351 2162 344.3 550.8
Idle 11 14

Table 8
ORC gross power to install in EU27 steel industries. Table 10
EU27 flat glass plant distribution and production [48].
Country ORC POWER ORC power in Total ORC power in
in EAF (MW) rolling mills (MW) EU27 steel ind. (MW) Country No. of plants Product (103 t/yr)
Italy 92.9 21.7 114.6 Germany 11 1425
Germany 74.0 82.2 156.2 France 7 907
Spain 85.8 25.6 111.3 Italy 7 908
France 43.1 30.1 73.2 Belgium 7 907
UK 27.7 19.7 47.4 UK 5 645
Belgium 25.7 28.7 54.5 Spain 5 645
Austria 4.2 12.2 16.5 Poland 3 390
Czech Rep. 0.8 9.2 10.0 Portugal 1 127
Others 83.3 81.0 164.3 Other 9 1545
Total EU27 437.5 310.5 748.0 Total 58 7500

mills (33) and plate mills (39) for a total amount of 262 rolling
mills.
The first application of heat recovery by ORC from re-heating
furnaces in hot rolling mills was started up in April 2013 in Singa-
pore. Hot rolling mills work with steel at temperature around
1500 °C and heat transfer is performed by direct exchange between
the organic working fluid and the heat source at temperature
around 400 °C simplifying the system layout. In this case the PCP
was identified with reheating furnaces hourly capacity, expressed
in metric tons per hour. Values were provided only for 209 rolling
mills, thus categories of blooming and slabbing mills (15), billet
mills (30) and many other facilities were excluded from the ORC
potential calculation.
Six audits were available. The calculated rP value is equal to
6.87 kW per ton produced every hour. We used this value in order
to estimate potential for other mills without considering facility
type, because product type is not related to furnaces size. Results
for the installable ORC gross power in EU27 EAFs and rolling mills
are presented in Table 8.
Potential recovery and savings are reported in Table 9. Consid-
ering 190 installations in EAFs and 209 in rolling mills, an energy
recovery between 3740 and 5984 GW h per year has been esti-
mated, equal to around 0.58% of the final electricity consumption
of EU27 industry in 2010 [45]. Avoided emissions of CO2 account
between 1.351 and 2.162 million metric tons, around 0.51% of
the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted in 2008 by EU27
[45]. At current electricity price for industry (see Table 2), Euro-
pean steel plants owners would save between 344 a 551 million
euro per year. Considering an average value of 3 million euro per
ORC in EAF to be installed in Riesa (Germany) within H-REII Demo
project by the end of 2013, many others are expected to follow.
5. Waste heat recovery in EU27 glass plants: ORC potential
Glass industry can be divided depending on the manufactured
product. In this study, only flat glass plants have been considered,
because energy audits for container glass were not available. De-
spite the cement and steel cases, it was not possible to access to
a database with data for every single glasswork. This study is
mainly based on BREF for glass manufacturing [48], related to
the 2007–2008 period. This document reports the number of fur-
naces placed in EU27 (Table 11) and their proportion divided into
ranges of daily production (Table 11). The PCP was identified in
daily capacity. The rP value was calculated relying on 15 energy
audits, one referring to a 1.3 MW ORC unit already operating in
Italy, while six of these audits are related to plants in extra EU27
countries, nevertheless these data have been used to calculate a
more accurate value of rP. These audits report ORC gross power,
but in some cases daily production data (PCP) is not available.
Thus, PCP has been estimated referring to the proportion shown
in Table 10, depending on ORC size. The average rP ratio is
2.7 kW ORC power per metric ton of tank daily capacity. For every
Table 11
EU27 flat glassworks production ranges [48].
t/day % No. of plants

installed ORC MW, the market size related to installations reaches <400 1 1
over 2 billion euro. 400–550 37 22
550–700 48 28
Steel represents the industry with most interesting possibilities
>700 14 7
of application in following years: after the first application of ORC
Total 100 58
in rolling mills started up in Singapore and the first application of
250 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252

Table 12
ORC power to install in EU27 flat glass industry.

Range Capacity ORC No. of Total ORC power

(t/day) power plants (MW)
(kW)
<400 350 1040 1 1.0
400–550 475 1040 22 22.9
550–700 625 1500 28 42.0
>700 750 1800 7 12.6
Total flat 58 78.5

range, an average size was calculated as shown in Table 12, for a

total gross ORC power of 78.5 MW with 58 installations. Consider-
ing 5000 annual operating hours, an energy recovery of
392.6 GW h per year can be estimated; avoided GHG emissions
are equal to 140,333 metric tons and avoided energy costs are
equal to 35.1 million euro per year. In case of 8000 annual operat-
ing hours, the following results can be obtained: energy recovery
equal to 628.2 GW h per year, avoided GHG emissions equal to
224,533 metric tons and avoided energy costs equal to 56.2 million
euro per year.
6. Waste heat recovery in EU27 gas turbines based oil&gas
industries: ORC potential
Natural gas transmission infrastructures are typically based on
gas turbine (GT) units, used to accomplish natural gas compression
in Gas Compressor Station (GCS), placed around every 100–
200 km, in order to maintain gas pressure on average around
70 bar, but with cases typically in the range 40–120 bar [49]. Their
Fig. 8. ORC Power over gas turbine Power diagram.
distribution is depicted in Fig. 7. Also in Gas Storage Fields (GSF)
gas is inserted into the infrastructure by means of gas turbines.
These stations use a part of the conveyed gas; the GCS is typically
made up of at least two GTs, one of those plays a backup role. GCS
can be divided in base load stations, which work continuously,
approximately 8000 h per year, and seasonal stations, located in
warm regions, working less than 4000 h per year. Fig. 8 shows
the potential ORC power versus GT power, with reference to differ-
ent commercial units. ORC allows the recovery of up to 35% of the
GT power, thus rP value chosen is 0.30. Data for GT power installed
in every European country were collected from [50] and from gas
transmission companies websites. To exclude backup units (usu-
ally one over three GTs) a reducing coefficient of the installed
power equal to 0.65 was adopted. In order to consider only base

Fig. 7. European gas compressor station distribution [50].

 F. Campana et al. / Energy Conversion and Management 76 (2013) 244–252 251

Table 13 load stations, a cautionary additional coefficient of 0.45 was

Gas turbine power and ORC power in Gas Compressor Station. adopted. ORC power was estimated as a 30% of the corrected GT
Country Gas turbines power Corrected power ORC power power. Results are reported in Table 13. Excluding Russia,
(MW) (MW) (MW) 1304 MW ORC gross power can be installed in EU27 gas plants,
Germany 2455 718 215 with electricity generation up to 10.43 TW h per year, avoided
UK 1455 426 128 GHG equal to 3.7 million metric tons and avoided energy costs
Italy 876 256 77 equal to 934 million euro per year. The calculated values of energy
France 650 190 57
Netherland 1014 297 89
recovery, avoided emission and cost savings for the four consid-
Spain 471 138 41 ered industries are reported in Tables 14 and 15 and in Fig. 9.
Austria 443 130 39
Belgium 126 37 11
Slovakia 42 12 4 7. Conclusions
Ireland 99 29 9
Poland 392 115 34
At the current trend, the EU target of 20% reduction in the final
Czech Rep. 349 102 31
Hungary 237 69 21 energy consumption will be hardly met [51]; thus, heat recovery
Finland 13 4 1 represents an opportunity to recover energy in industry processes.
Bulgaria 227 66 20 Among heat recovery technologies, ORC systems represents a via-
EU27 8849 2588 776 ble option to be adopted in different industries. Taking into consid-
Russia 44,377 12,980 3894 eration only the following sectors: cement, steel (EAF and rolling
Ukraine 5862 1715 514
mills), glass (float furnaces) and GCS in Europe, the installation of
Norway 150 44 13
2705 MW of ORC gross power has been estimated in this study.
Total Europe 59,238 17,327 5198
This ORC power installation potential would lead to up to
21.6 TW h per year of electricity production, with savings of almost
Table 14
1.95 billion euro and of over 8.1 million tons of GHG emission, a
ORC potential in EU energy intensive industries. value which represents almost 2% of the European Industry
consumption.
Process Heat source PsORC Plants ORC power
temp (°C) (kW/t) (MW)
This study represents the first comprehensive estimate of ORC
units that can be installed in cement, steel, glass and oil&gas indus-
Flat Glass 500 2.33 58 79
tries in the 27 countries of the European Union based on an accu-
Clinker Prod. 350 1.01 241 574
EAF 250a 27.8 190 438 rate methodology, described in Section 3, related to real plants in
Rolling mills 400 6.87 209 310 operation or under construction. These industries were chosen
GCS and GSF 30%b 613 1304 for their larger opportunity; new applications in other fields are
Total 2705 currently objects of study (non-ferrous metals, aluminum, copper,
a waste, biomass, etc.). This study and the described methodology
Steam from heat exchanger.
b
Percentage of gas turbine Power. can be a starting point for assessing ORC potential in other sectors
or world regions in order to quantify additional interesting oppor-
tunities for energy savings and environmental benefits.
Table 15
Energy recovery, emission and cost savings at 5000 h/yr (a) and at 8000 h/yr (b) in
EU27 industries.
Acknowledgments
Energy recovery Emission avoided Cost savings (mln
(GW hh/yr) (103 t CO2/yr) €/yr) The authors would like to thank: the H-REII Demo project; Tur-
5000 h 8000 h 5000 h 8000 h 5000 h 8000 h boden srl, represented by A. Foresti, S. Santarossa, V. Vaccari, for
Flat Glass 393 628 140 225 35.1 56.2 internal data and support in the study; FIRE; M. Manuzzi and N.
Cement 2870 4592 121 1940 260.1 416.2 Decarli for their help.
Steel 3740 5984 1351 2162 344.3 550.8
GCS and GSF 6520 10,432 2328 3724 583.5 933.7
EU27 13,523 21,636 5032 8501 1223 1957
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