Industrial waste heat utilisation in Japan

Online Expert Workshop / Virtual Market Exploration Trip

Climate protection through industrial waste heat utilisation

The use of industrial waste heat to provide process heat or electricity increases energy efficiency in production and is an innovative key technology for the realization of a sustainable industry. At the same time, a significant increase in energy efficiency is crucial for achieving climate protection goals.

In particular, the potential of industrial waste heat has so far received little attention and has been little used in Japan. However, there is growing interest on the part of the Japanese government to make increasing use of waste heat as part of the expansion of climate protection measures.

Within the framework of a German-Japanese online expert workshop, companies and institutes could

• Receive first-hand information on the general conditions, the state of the technology, the market situation, competitors and projects
• Identify cooperation and business opportunities in the field of industrial waste heat utilization
• Present innovative technologies and projects
• Explore funding opportunities for bilateral projects from the Japanese side (e.g., grants for equipment)
• Get feedback on opportunities for specific technologies in Japan and Germany
• Establish interesting contacts.

Discussions focused on questions of economic viability, political options for motivating companies to increase energy efficiency, and the potential and areas of application for certain technologies such as mobile heat storage units or high-performance heat pumps.

It became clear: Japan is technologically ahead in some areas, but can learn a lot from the systemic approach in Germany. Heat registers, energy neighborhoods and targeted "matching" between heat sources and heat consumers are currently still neglected in Japan.

German and Japanese experts agreed that data centers will develop into a significant industrial sector with great waste heat utilization potential as a result of advancing digitalization. There are opportunities for cooperation here, as well as in the combination of innovative latent heat storage systems with Carnot batteries, the development of thermocouples, or the potential applications of high-performance heat pumps for low input temperatures. The next opportunity for exchange will be the BMU symposium Industrial Waste Heat Utilization in autumn 2021.