Week 4 – Session 22

Energy Efficiency
Pinch Methodology

Olivier BERNAERT

MOOC ENERGY TRANSITION

IFP SCHOOL
Introduction
In this section, we will take a look at the energy efficiency importance as a
key element to reach the COP 21 objectives. As you have seen several times
during this MOOC, in order to reach the objective of keeping global warning
below 2°C we have to reduce our CO2 emissions.

To go further, have a look at the following graph. The difference between the
two lines represents the gain of energy done thanks to energy efficiency
programs. From 2000 to 2016, we saved 16 terawatts.

This is really a huge quantity of energy!

it is equivalent to the energy needed to run

16 000 lights sabers from the Star wars movie.

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Heat Exchanger
But more seriously, in industries the main equipment to recover energy is heat
exchanger.
What is a heat exchanger? A heat exchanger allows transferring heat from
one fluid to another one without mixing. It is used each time you want to heat
cold fluids or to cool down hot fluids.

For instance, one section– called tubes - is filled with the cold fluid and the
other section - called shell - with the hot fluid.
Let’s have a look inside a heat exchanger. The cold stream enters at a
temperature t1 and the hot stream enters at a temperature TA. The tube, here
in blue, is filled with the cold fluid. And the shell, in red, with the hot one.
During the circulation of both fluids into the exchanger, there is a transfer of
heat from the hot fluid to the cold one. At the outlet, the cold fluid is hotter
and the hot fluid is colder.

It is easy to calculate the quantity of heat exchanged between the 2 streams.

Let’s focus on the cold fluid. We have to know several parameters:
• The inlet and outlet temperatures
• The flowrate of the fluid, here designed by mc.
• And finally its heat capacity, Cp. The heat capacity is the amount of
heat in kcal needed to raise the temperature of 1°C for 1 kilogram of
fluid.

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Finally, without vaporization, the quantity of heat exchanged is calculated
thanks to this formula: Q = M x Cp x Delta T

.
The quantity of heat released by the hot fluid is equal to the quantity received
by the cold one.

Heat Exchangers network

Here is an example of a real unit. The feed needs to be heated to enter into a
reactor. It goes through several exchangers (in red) and is heated by steam.
The steam is produced inside a boiler, where we burn fuel gas and thus
produce a certain amount of CO2.

At the reactor exit, the fluid finally needs to be cooled down through other
exchangers (in blue). Without heat integration, this process uses a lot of steam
to heat up the feed: it is a waste of energy and money and contributes to
CO2 emissions.
We can improve the situation by installing a feed / effluent exchanger to
recover energy and decrease CO2 emissions.

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In this example, the energy needed to heat the feed is coming directly from
the outlet of the reactor by installing a feed / effluent exchanger.

Pinch Methodology
To improve energy efficiency, increase heat recovery and reduce CO2
emissions, we need to use a dedicated methodology called Pinch.
Let’s now explain this approach developed by Professor Linhoff in the 70’s.
Let’s work on the following example.

We have 4 streams: 2 cold ones and 2 hot ones. We must try to combine
these flows in order to recover as much energy as possible.

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To do this, we first calculate each streams heat’s quantity using the previous
formula: Q = M CP Delta T. Then we can represent the 2 cold streams on the
following graph:
• A from 30 to 120 °C with a heat quantity of 162 kW
• B from 60 to 100°C.

Let’s start to draw what we call « the cold composite curve. » We start at the
lowest temperature, it is 30°C, until the next interval of temperature here 60°C.
Between these 2 points we have only one stream (A)! So it easy! We take the
heat quantity from A to start to draw the cold composite curve.

Then, for the next interval between 60 and 100 we have 2 streams (A+B), so
the MCP will be the sum of the 2 streams. In this example: the second interval
goes from 60 to 100 with a heat quantity of 5.8 multiply by 40 °C equals 232
kW.
And we continue like that until the end to obtain the cold composite curve.

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We follow the same approach for the hot composite curve.

These 2 curves give us a lot of information. We can calculate the minimum

cold utility needed to run the process: here 6 kW.
We can calculate the (hot) minimum energy required to run the process: here
48 kW. It’s the quantity of hot utilities needed: like steam from a boiler, or heat
from a furnace.

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In the center of the graph, you can read the maximum energy you can
recover by installing heat exchangers network (HEN). Here 274 kW of energy
could come directly from the process itself and reduce CO2 emissions by
saving hot utilities.
The minimum gap in temperature between both curves is called the pinch. It
is important to try to optimize this gap in order to minimize the energy required
to run the unit.

Conclusions
To sum up what we just said:
Heat exchangers are the key equipment to recover and save energy.
Pinch methodology gives us the potential savings of energy inside a unit. From
this method, we obtain the minimum cold and hot utilities required to run a
unit and the energy you can recover by installing a heat exchanger network.
To finish I would like to thank Agathe, Baptiste and César, IFP School
graduates, who help me preparing this lecture.

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