Hearthline retrofits high-temperature heat pumps into factories that were told electrification was 'not for them'. They like a site visit and a gas bill.
They look for university partners on refrigerants, controls, and the occasional stubborn heat exchanger.
Their commercial insight was that the barrier to industrial electrification is rarely the equipment. It is that nobody has done the integration study on the specific site, with the specific duty cycle and the specific tariff, and so the plant manager has no number to take to a board. Hearthline sells that number first and the hardware second.
The engineering constraint they keep meeting is temperature lift. Above roughly 150 °C the refrigerant options narrow, the compressor duty becomes unpleasant and the economics tighten considerably. Most of their research collaboration is aimed at that region, because that is where a great deal of British process heat sits.
Capabilities
- High-temperature industrial heat pumps
- Site integration and controls
- Techno-economic models that survive a finance director
- Heat-and-mass balance for process lines
- Retrofit design within shutdown windows
- Refrigerant selection and compatibility assessment
Ways in
The routes that exist, and what each is suited to.
Integration studies
Paid site studies producing a heat-and-mass balance, a preferred integration schematic and a payback calculated on the actual tariff. Frequently the whole of a first engagement.
Published work packages
Scoped research and advisory jobs put to the network when a question needs a laboratory or a specialist they do not employ.
Demonstration site partnerships
Arrangements with manufacturers willing to host an installation and share the operating data that results.
How to approach them
They will ask for twelve months of gas and electricity data and a walk round the plant. Without both, they will decline to quote, which their competitors apparently find eccentric.
They are comfortable being told that a site is unsuitable and will say so in writing. Their view is that a reputation for accurate assessments is worth more than an additional installation.
Known for
- Four industrial heat pump installations commissioned on operating sites
- An integration study programme that has surveyed considerably more sites than it has sold equipment to
- Operating data from a full year on a finishing line, shared with two university partners