Industrial Heat Pump Alliance
A collaborative initiative of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE),
the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA),
and the Renewable Thermal Collaborative (RTC).
A collaborative initiative of the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA), and the Renewable Thermal Collaborative (RTC).
The Industrial Heat Pump (IHP) Alliance envisions large-scale deployment of IHPs in the United States by 2030, leading to significant industrial thermal emissions reductions and IHP cost decreases. IHPs operate by increasing the temperature of heat from their surroundings or waste streams and moving it to where it is needed. They expand or compress refrigerants to deliver useful heat instead of generating heat by combusting fossil fuels like natural gas.
Why are IHPs promising?
Broadly Applicable
Commercially available IHPs can be used across key sectors to meet 30% of all industrial process heat needs.
Cost Effective
IHPs create cost savings that enable paybacks as short as two years in best-fit applications.
Highly Efficient
IHPs typically deliver 2-4 times more energy than they consume.
What are the co-benefits enabled by IHPs?
For neighboring communities, workforce, and economy:
Improved air quality and reduced noise pollution
Local job creation
Wider economic growth
For implementing facilities:
Workplace health and safety
Reduced insurance and permitting costs
Reduced maintenance costs
Resource conservation
Improved product quality
Future proofing and modularity
The IHP Alliance seeks to transform the market so that facility managers, service providers, and utilities consider IHPs as an ideal option for recovering waste heat and meeting low-to-medium temperature process heat needs.
Specifically, the IHP Alliance seeks to enable the deployment of up to 625 TBTUs/year of IHP capacity, reduce low temperature industrial thermal emissions by approximately 10% from 2018 levels, and achieve levelized cost of heat parity between IHPs and natural gas on average across the U.S. by 2030.
Four primary objectives of the IHP Alliance:
Accelerate IHP demonstration
and deployment projects.
Increase domestic IHP manufacturing and market implementation capacity.
Raise awareness and
knowledge of IHPs.
Identify and advocate for supportive policies and funding.
Transforming the Market
Shifting from early adoption of IHPs to large-scale deployment will require several parallel initiatives. IHP demonstration projects will have the greatest impact on domestic market transformation and can be enabled by policy and market education. With a focus on these priority actions, the IHP Alliance is advancing demand signal, market support, and policy advocacy measures to transform the market. The IHP Alliance will help position key players in the emerging market to take advantage of IHP opportunities and decarbonize industrial process heat to the greatest extent possible.