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Alternative Thermal Technologies for Industrial Process Heat: Barriers and Opportunities.

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Title: Alternative Thermal Technologies for Industrial Process Heat: Barriers and Opportunities.
Authors: Nevills, Miles1 (AUTHOR), Bhandari, Indraneel1 (AUTHOR) bhandarii1@ornl.gov, Kamath, Dipti1 (AUTHOR), Nimbalkar, Sachin U.1 (AUTHOR), Sundaramoorthy, Senthil1 (AUTHOR), Okeke, Ikenna J.1 (AUTHOR), Banboukian, Aline1 (AUTHOR), Wenning, Thomas1 (AUTHOR)
Source: Energies (19961073). Aug2026, Vol. 19 Issue 15, p3474. 32p.
Subjects: Process heating, Cost analysis, Electric heating, Capital costs, Energy shortages, Thermal engineering, Alternative fuels, Biomass burning
Geographic Terms: United States
Abstract: Energy scarcity and subsequent global fuel market shocks have become a significant concern for the United States. Process heating in industry accounts for over half of all industrial energy usage and is almost entirely (>95%) supplied by natural gas, coal, and byproduct fuels. Many existing alternatives, technologies, and strategies can reduce dependency on this fossil fuel usage to promote energy security and competitiveness. It is expected that adoption of alternatives is limited by capital investment. A working group exploratory exercise was performed to evaluate the current barriers to alternative process heat technology adoption for the manufacturing sector. Although the working group's findings emphasize electro-technologies due to their emergence as the central topic of discussion, we have contextualized these results by providing a fair and consistent comparison against several alternative thermal technology options. The most reported issue was the lack of financial incentives, with the second key issue for engineers and manufacturing sector decision-makers being the lack of awareness or understanding of available alternatives. This paper aims to provide an analysis of the levelized cost of heating for a variety of alternatives as part of addressing concerns from the emergent patterns reported in the exploratory exercise, as well as provide guidance on barriers to further adoption. Levelized cost of heating analysis considered the capital investment, operations and maintenance, lifespan, and fuel stream costs of various systems delivering heat to the product or process as a generalized cost per megawatt-hour delivered. The analysis indicates that biomass burners, industrial open-loop heat pumps, and central-receiver heliostat fields are at cost parity under average 2024 United States natural gas and electricity prices against well-optimized natural gas burners, though further cost reductions are necessary for consistent adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Copyright of Energies (19961073) is the property of MDPI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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  Data: Energy scarcity and subsequent global fuel market shocks have become a significant concern for the United States. Process heating in industry accounts for over half of all industrial energy usage and is almost entirely (>95%) supplied by natural gas, coal, and byproduct fuels. Many existing alternatives, technologies, and strategies can reduce dependency on this fossil fuel usage to promote energy security and competitiveness. It is expected that adoption of alternatives is limited by capital investment. A working group exploratory exercise was performed to evaluate the current barriers to alternative process heat technology adoption for the manufacturing sector. Although the working group's findings emphasize electro-technologies due to their emergence as the central topic of discussion, we have contextualized these results by providing a fair and consistent comparison against several alternative thermal technology options. The most reported issue was the lack of financial incentives, with the second key issue for engineers and manufacturing sector decision-makers being the lack of awareness or understanding of available alternatives. This paper aims to provide an analysis of the levelized cost of heating for a variety of alternatives as part of addressing concerns from the emergent patterns reported in the exploratory exercise, as well as provide guidance on barriers to further adoption. Levelized cost of heating analysis considered the capital investment, operations and maintenance, lifespan, and fuel stream costs of various systems delivering heat to the product or process as a generalized cost per megawatt-hour delivered. The analysis indicates that biomass burners, industrial open-loop heat pumps, and central-receiver heliostat fields are at cost parity under average 2024 United States natural gas and electricity prices against well-optimized natural gas burners, though further cost reductions are necessary for consistent adoption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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  Data: <i>Copyright of Energies (19961073) is the property of MDPI and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract.</i> (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
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        Value: 10.3390/en19153474
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        Text: English
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        PageCount: 32
        StartPage: 3474
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Process heating
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Cost analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Electric heating
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Capital costs
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      – SubjectFull: Energy shortages
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      – SubjectFull: Thermal engineering
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      – SubjectFull: Alternative fuels
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      – SubjectFull: Biomass burning
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      – SubjectFull: United States
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      – TitleFull: Alternative Thermal Technologies for Industrial Process Heat: Barriers and Opportunities.
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              Text: Aug2026
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