Craft Brewery Industrial Heat Pump Screening Tool

The proposed project is to develop a “Craft Brewery Industrial Heat Pump Screening Tool” to assess the viability of potential industrial heat pump (IHP) installations for small and medium business (SMB) craft breweries. The proposed tool will screen IHP performance specifications for typical thermal loads found at SMB craft breweries. Site visits will provide validation of common baseline conditions that affect IHP system design, performance, and cost. The goal of this proposal is to develop a screening tool for customers, developers, and program implementors to help educate, assess, and bring to market IHP opportunities for craft breweries. The tool will be used by decision-makers to screen options during the project planning and early system design process.  Cost inputs will be allowed to estimate payback times. The questions the tool will answer are: Where might a heat pump be viable? What technologies might be suitable? Do similar installations exist? Which technologies and equipment are available on the market for these load types (brewing heating and cooling, domestic hot water, bottle pasteurization, space heating and cooling, etc.)? What field data are necessary to improve assessment confidence?   Answering these questions will provide a road map for realizing potential energy, economic and environment benefits associated with IHP installations. The literature review will include researching industry websites, posted conference reports and presentations, review of existing case studies and applicable HP technologies and characterizing existing hot water and steam generation and heat recovery technologies. We will review literature and identify progressive breweries that break down thermal loads and are early adaptors of IHP. We will interview energy managers in key breweries to substantiate our modeling and measure characterizations. What is currently lacking in this sector is a IHP tool specifically targeting SMB craft breweries. This standalone tool could help overcome current barriers by informing breweries about existing conditions, proposed 2030 No NOx water heating air quality requirements, viable retrofit opportunities, and proposed benefits – i.e., to energy savings, potential cost savings, CO2 emission reductions, ranking of utility incentives and on-bill financing (OBF) programs.