Maximize your heat pump efficiency: 4 strategies for biopharma

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For sustainable manufacturing solutions to take hold, they must offer a strong business case. New and highly efficient technologies like heat pump systems offer a solution, providing a pathway to sustainable facilities that consume less energy, require less operational spending, and do more to drive businesses forward.

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Where business and sustainability diverge—and how to unite them.

The move away from gas-fueled commercial heating systems has been challenging, in part because of today’s energy marketplace. As long as the cost of natural gas is lower than the cost of electricity, it’s hard to justify that shift from a financial perspective—even as the urgency or policy behind it continues to grow.

The relatively modest capital cost of new heating systems has also weakened the business case behind sustainable design. Without the deterrence of a high price tag, facility owners may choose systems that are oversized and over-engineered, perceiving these large implementations as protection against worst-case scenarios and an investment in future scalability. But these large systems consume far more energy than strictly necessary, potentially costing more in OpEx over time and undermining long-term sustainability targets.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Heat pumps offer high ROI and low emissions when properly planned.

By applying this four-part energy conservation strategy designed for the life science industry, facility owners can establish a reliable, right-sized, energy-efficient operation that delivers strong business outcomes while also moving the needle on sustainability.

Your energy conservation strategy for heat pump efficiency and beyond

This four-part strategy will help facility teams maximize the financial and environmental benefits of a highly efficient heat pump system. Even those shifting to electric boilers or continuing with gas-fueled systems could benefit from this pre-work, which paves the way for a cost-effective heating and cooling system that’s better for business and for the planet.

Your 4-step guide to greater heat pump efficiency:

Step-by-step checklist guide to improving heat pump efficiency for biotech and pharma operations

DOWNLOAD THE HEAT PUMP EFFICIENCY CHECKLIST NOW.

Collect annualized trend data → to right-size your relatively expensive alternative heating and cooling system according to actual utility needs.
Lower your heating hot water temperature to a minimum threshold → to lay the groundwork for more efficient and commercially available alternative equipment.
Untether central plant steam → to reduce reliance on steam generation systems that offer poor efficiency outcomes.
Continuously review energy conservation measures under different lenses → to align your business priorities with important sustainability targets, such as carbon and water reduction strategies.

1. Collect annualized trend data.

Heating systems based on design values (such as runtime assumptions, conservative safety margins, or projected growth that fails to materialize) rather than real-world needs are often larger than necessary, which means they’re more costly and less efficient than they could be. To right-size your system, start by collecting the right data.

Heat recovery systems, which capture excess heat and repurpose it elsewhere, provide the double benefit of improved efficiency from both cooling towers and heating systems. A well-designed heat recovery system hinges on a few key questions, such as:

How much heat is available for recovery?
How does that number compare to your facility’s heating needs?
Does seasonal change impact those heating needs throughout the year?

Without data-driven answers, the likely outcome is an over-engineered system designed to compensate for these unknowns through excessive redundancy.

Annualized day-to-day trend data is the solution. By collecting 8760 data across several variables (that is, hourly data collected over a standard year), you can shift away from assumptions-based design and instead implement systems engineered to meet your actual needs, now and in the future.

For owners pursuing energy conservation by reducing their heating needs, collecting and analyzing 8760 data related to heating hot water (HHW) loads and chilled water (CHW) loads is key. This data will help you build alignment between heating and cooling needs, ensuring that heat recovery systems are optimally designed for year-round efficiency.

When implementing a metering strategy for HHW and CHW loads, consider collecting water and steam usage data, as well.

The relatively low cost of water has disincentivized owners from prioritizing water conservation initiatives in the past, but today’s emphasis on sustainability is triggering a shift. Collecting water consumption data from across your facility is an important step toward developing water-saving strategies, particularly in high-use applications such as cooling towers, high-purity water production, irrigation systems, and potable water supplies.

As far as steam goes, reducing your dependence on steam can lower your facility’s energy and maintenance costs while improving its sustainability. The first step is understanding how steam is currently used in the facility.

2. Lower your HHW temperature to a minimum threshold.

By shifting to the lowest-grade heat required, facility owners can generate huge efficiency gains over time.

Historically, life science manufacturers have heated their HHW to 180°F. This high temperature threshold, established in an era of steam-based hot water generation, allowed for efficient heat transfer. This meant owners could rely on smaller pipes, pumps and heat exchangers while ensuring a safe margin below boiling temperatures (212°F at atmospheric pressure). Until recently, there has been little motivation to rethink this benchmark temperature, especially given the relatively low cost of running natural gas boilers.

That scenario is now changing as owners move to heat pump systems, leading them to acknowledge the high cost of over-heated water. Just as a chiller uses a refrigeration cycle to extract and transfer heat, so does a heat pump. Chillers and heat pumps share other principles, as well: in both systems, lowering the ‘lift’—the temperature difference between the heat source (evaporator) and the heat sink (condenser)—increases operating efficiency. That’s why it’s important to shrink that differential as much as possible. The capability of commercially off-the-shelf heat pumps is also a factor; using today’s refrigerants, most heat pumps peak at 120°F to 140°F supply water temperature.

Identifying the lowest-grade heat possible for your facility is a straightforward process, though it will require incremental adjustments. Start by using valve position feedback to limit the opening of hot water coil valves to no more than 90%, taking precautions to protect coils that could freeze when exposed to varying temperatures. Continue gradually reducing the HHW temperature and monitoring performance until you reach the lowest acceptable threshold.

3. Eliminate the central plant steam.

Only a small fraction (as low as <10%) of manufacturing activities require steam. With proper planning, you can meet the rest of your heating needs with hot water applications. This shift will set you up for a much more efficient, less energy-intensive operation that’s suitable for alternative technologies such as heat pumps.

Steam is necessary to sterilize glassware, instruments, and other materials in autoclaves. It often feeds humidification systems as well, which control the environmental conditions inside cleanrooms and other sensitive environments.

Outside of these applications, there are few areas of the life science facility where steam is absolutely necessary. Even the process of generating water for injection (WFI) without steam is now more widely accepted, thanks to membrane-based filtration technologies and a corresponding shift in the regulatory landscape. And yet most existing facilities feature a central steam boiler to meet all of their heating needs, far beyond sterilization and humidification. If the boiler is there, why not use it—or so the thinking goes.

This mindset is costly from an environmental perspective, especially in facilities that generate steam using gas-fueled boilers. Why persist with this approach when HHW would suffice for the majority of applications? Heat pumps could generate that HHW, while standalone electric steam generators and humidifiers could replace central plant steam for sterilization and humidity control.

Expert tip:

In climates that feature cold, dry winters, electric steam generators that add heat to a facility may still be advantageous over alternative methods, while adiabatic humidifiers may be preferred in hot, dry regions that benefit from a cooling effect.

This transition does introduce challenges. You’ll need adequate space to hold standalone steam generators, whether on top of the equipment supported by the standalone system or in the gray, or mechanical, space nearby. And for heat pumps to meet the rest of your facility’s heating needs, you’ll need to identify the lowest-grade heat possible to ensure efficiency—a process already accounted for in this four-part strategy.

4. Continuously review energy conservation measures under different lenses.

To face the increased cost of carbon and water, whether directly or indirectly sourced, facility owners need to shift their mindset and evaluate their energy use from a new perspective—one that integrates both the business benefits of a more efficient facility, and the urgent need for responsible, sustainable manufacturing solutions

Electrification, temperature reduction, water conservation, steam elimination—these are all paradigm shifts that will change the way life science companies operate their facilities, model future business outcomes, and deliver high-quality therapies that help patients without harming the planet. Staying on top of these changes requires a flexible mindset and a commitment to continuous improvement.

That means seizing every opportunity for energy conservation. Some opportunities present major advantages, such as transferring thermal energy from the exhaust airstream to incoming airstreams—a strategy that could have major impacts for facilities operating in cold winter climates. This approach is achievable using common technologies such as heat pipes, glycol runaround loops, fixed plate heat exchangers, and enthalpy wheels, each with their own tradeoffs. Other opportunities for energy conservation are relatively small, such as installing occupancy sensors to reduce wasted energy in low-traffic areas of the facility—but even these modest shifts can have a strong cumulative impact over time.

A roadmap for heat pump efficiency

There are multiple steps necessary for running an efficient biotech or pharma manufacturing facility. Here is an example roadmap and timeline outlining the above pre-work for transitioning to energy-efficient heat pumps.

Download our step-by-step checklist for heat pump efficiency here to keep your site on track.

Conserve energy, maximize business outcomes

Leaders in the life science industry are actively strategizing to reduce their impact on the climate. We heard this from the 500+ respondents to our latest Horizons: Life Sciences report, who told us that 93% of today’s companies have a formal sustainability roadmap in place, and nearly 25% are focused on decarbonization as their top priority. Every operations team can make several relatively low-cost changes to help their site hit these ambitious targets and meet their personal KPIs. Taking action now will lay the groundwork for strategic asset replacements and upgrades in the future, helping owners unlock greater efficiencies while driving strong business results.

For expert advice about how to identify and leverage these opportunities in your own facility, reach out to our team of heat pump and sustainability experts.