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Integration study: 180 °C heat pump on a finishing line

A factory that still believes steam is a personality. We need a process-integration study that a finance director and a fitter can both survive.

Budget

£20–35k

Duration

10 weeks

Closes

28 Sept 2026

Background

The site is a finishing line currently served by a steam system of considerable age and questionable efficiency. The client has been told, more than once, that electrification is not viable for them. Nobody has produced a study on this site, with this duty cycle, at this tariff, so the claim has never actually been tested.

We need a process-integration study covering what the line genuinely requires, what a 180 °C heat pump could deliver, and what the payback looks like on the actual tariff rather than an indicative one. The result may be that it does not pay, in which case we would like to know why and at what temperature or tariff it would.

Two audiences must be satisfied. The finance director needs a defensible payback and a capital figure. The maintenance fitter needs to believe the thing can be installed during a shutdown and maintained afterwards. Studies that satisfy only one of them do not lead to installations.

Scope

  • Map the finishing-line heat demand and the bits that are theatre.
  • Size a 180 °C heat-pump option against the existing steam set.
  • Produce a payback that uses the actual tariff, not a hope.
  • Assess whether the installation can be completed within a planned shutdown.
  • Identify the sensitivities that would change the conclusion either way.

Constraints

The awkward facts, stated now rather than in week six.

  • The line runs three shifts; measurement must not interrupt production
  • The only realistic installation window is an annual shutdown of eleven days
  • Some existing steam distribution is undocumented and will need surveying
  • Half-hourly electricity data is available; heat is metered only in part

Deliverables

  • Heat-and-mass balance
  • Preferred integration schematic
  • Board-ready cost note
  • Installation sequence assessed against the shutdown window
  • Sensitivity analysis on tariff, duty cycle and temperature lift

Milestones

  1. Week 2Site survey including a night shift; metering gaps identified
  2. Week 5Heat-and-mass balance delivered and reviewed
  3. Week 8Integration schematic and installation sequence drafted
  4. Week 10Board-ready cost note and sensitivity analysis delivered

Who should apply

  • Process or energy consultancy, or a university group with plant experience
  • Willingness to walk the line on a night shift
  • Demonstrated experience of retrofit within constrained shutdown windows
  • Ability to write for a board and for a maintenance team

How applications will be judged

In roughly this order.

  • Evidence of completed integration studies that led to installations
  • Approach to establishing the true heat demand where metering is partial
  • Treatment of the shutdown window as a design constraint
  • Whether the proposal reads as though the author has been on a night shift

Terms

  • The study belongs to us and to the client jointly; the provider may cite it in anonymised form
  • Site data, tariffs and production information are strictly confidential
  • We will act on an unfavourable conclusion, and expect one if it is warranted
  • Fixed price with the night-shift survey costed explicitly

Apply

Tell the publisher who you are and what you would do. We pass it on. The rest is between grown-ups.

The client has heard 'not viable for you' before. If that is the answer, we need it evidenced well enough to close the question.