High-Temperature & Process / Industrial Heat Pumps: Heat pumps for businesses

Why high-temperature heat pumps change the game for industrial businesses

For businesses whose heat demand is not just space heating but process heat, the conversation moves up a level. High-temperature and process heat pumps deliver flow at 70 to 90C and beyond, which is hot enough to serve manufacturing, laundries and food production rather than only warming an office. That capability matters because process heat has historically been the hardest part of an industrial site to decarbonise, locked into gas or oil with no obvious electric alternative. High-temperature heat pumps for businesses in these sectors finally provide one, and on energy-intensive sites the savings on both cost and carbon can be very large, often dwarfing what a comparable space-heating project delivers.

The economics are sharpened by two things. First, many industrial sites have waste heat going up the stack or out of a refrigeration plant, and a process heat pump can recover that waste heat from refrigeration, compressors or process streams and lift it back to useful temperatures, so you are paying to upgrade heat you already have rather than make it from scratch. Second, energy-intensive sites carry significant Climate Change Levy exposure on their fuel, so cutting fuel use cuts a levy as well as a bill. For a manufacturer, laundry or food producer under pressure from sustainability-conscious customers, decarbonised process heat is increasingly a tender differentiator, not just a back-office saving.

It is worth being precise about what "high temperature" buys you, because it is the feature that makes this technology relevant to industry at all. Standard commercial heat pumps are happiest at the 45 to 55C flow temperatures that warm a building. Process heat, by contrast, often needs 70, 80 or even 90C and above to wash, sterilise, dry or cook, and until recently that ruled heat pumps out of the conversation for industrial duties. High-temperature units, increasingly built around natural refrigerants, now reach those temperatures reliably, which opens process heat to electrification for the first time. Combine that with waste-heat recovery, where the input to the heat pump is heat the site was already throwing away, and the achievable efficiency at high flow temperature becomes genuinely attractive rather than a compromise. For an energy-intensive business, this is the difference between decarbonising the easy 20% of heat demand and tackling the 80% that actually drives the bill.

What a typical install looks like and how we size it

Industrial and process heat-pump schemes span a wide range, generally 100 kW to 2 MW and beyond of thermal output, using high-temperature units delivering 70 to 90C-plus flow together with waste-heat recovery loops, in a plant compound whose footprint varies by process. A scheme on that scale delivers in the region of 200,000 to 5,000,000 kWh of heat a year and removes between 35 and 900 tonnes of CO2 annually. Sizing here is driven by the process duty and its temperature requirement, not floor area, so we study the process heat demand profile and at least twelve months of fuel consumption, and we map where waste heat is available to recover. The temperature lift is the engineering crux: delivering 70 to 90C-plus reliably and efficiently is what separates a process heat pump from a space-heating unit, and recovering waste heat into the same loop is what lifts overall efficiency. We specify performance to BS EN 14825 and BS EN 14511 so the figures are comparable across suppliers. Every process is different, so we resist the temptation to scale a previous job to fit yours. A laundry raising wash water, a food producer needing pasteurisation heat and a manufacturer drying product all have distinct temperature profiles and distinct waste-heat sources, and the right design follows that detail rather than a generic template, which is why the survey and the consumption data come before any quoted figure.

Costs, payback and tax relief

Industrial and process schemes typically run £200,000 to £3,000,000 and beyond, reflecting the scale and the temperature duty, with a simple payback in the region of 9 years on a self-funded basis, often shorter where waste-heat recovery and high fuel use combine. As plant and machinery the capital qualifies for full expensing for a company (100%, no cap, permanent from April 2026, worth up to 25p of tax saved per pound at the 25% corporation-tax rate) or the Annual Investment Allowance for an unincorporated business. Crucially for industrial sites, this technology is also eligible for the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund, which can meet a substantial share of capital and dramatically improve the return, so grant and tax relief often stack. Our cost guide works through the economics, and you should confirm tax treatment with your accountant, particularly where parts of the ancillary works fall under AIA rather than full expensing.

Funding routes in detail

The standout funding route for industrial process heat is the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund (IETF), operated by DESNZ, which supports fuel-switching to industrial heat pumps and waste-heat recovery for sites in eligible SIC codes. Eligible sectors include manufacturing, recovery and recycling, and data centres, along with newer additions including controlled-environment horticulture, industrial laundries and textile renting, across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The fund runs to £185m total across 2024 to 2028, with an SME minimum grant of £75,000 and intervention typically 30 to 50%, on technology at TRL 7 or above, with projects completing by 31 March 2028 through periodic competition windows. Public-sector industrial sites may instead use the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme. Any business can layer full expensing or the Annual Investment Allowance on top, and the domestic Boiler Upgrade Scheme does not apply. We assess your SIC-code eligibility and build the IETF application around the project.

Compliance and sector considerations

High-temperature duties push refrigerant choice to the front of the design. The F-Gas phase-down of high-GWP gases drives natural-refrigerant designs (R290 propane, ammonia, CO2) for the top of the temperature range, and flammable refrigerants bring DSEAR and ATEX considerations for the plant, which we design for explicitly. All refrigerant work is carried out by F-Gas certified engineers under the UK F-Gas Regulation, and systems are designed to BS EN 378 for refrigeration and heat-pump safety and environmental requirements. IETF eligibility is gated on the site's SIC code, so we confirm that before building the funding case. As with all large heat pumps, the electrical load is significant and a DNO supply upgrade may be needed, so we confirm capacity early since it can be the longest-lead item. Performance is specified to BS EN 14511 and BS EN 14825 throughout.

How we approach this kind of project

Industrial process heat is unforgiving of guesswork, so we model from real data: the process heat demand profile, at least twelve months of fuel consumption, and a survey of where waste heat can be recovered, all priced at current and forecast energy costs. We design the temperature lift and the waste-heat recovery loop to maximise overall efficiency, specify the right refrigerant for the duty with the DSEAR and ATEX siting that flammable refrigerants demand, and confirm DNO supply capacity and submit the G99 grid application early. We assess IETF eligibility against your SIC code up front and build the application around the scheme. You receive a fixed-price proposal and an insurance-backed warranty, with performance quoted to BS EN 14825 and BS EN 14511 so it is directly comparable to any compliant supplier.

Grid capacity deserves particular attention on industrial sites, because a megawatt-scale heat pump is a serious electrical load, and an energy-intensive site may already be near its supply limit. We confirm available capacity at feasibility rather than discovering a constraint late, because a DNO supply upgrade can be the single longest-lead item in the whole programme and dictate the timeline. Where capacity is tight, we look at phasing the installation, designing for the recovered-waste-heat baseload first, or demand management to stay within the existing connection. Getting that conversation started early is often the difference between a project that lands on schedule and one that stalls waiting for the network, which is why we treat the grid position as a first-order design input on every industrial scheme rather than a box ticked at the end.

The carbon case for industrial heat pumps is unusually strong because of the scale of the loads involved. Replacing gas or oil process heat removes on-site combustion entirely, so the only emissions are from grid electricity, which continues to fall as the grid decarbonises, meaning the carbon saving improves every year the system runs. On a large energy-intensive site that can amount to a very substantial annual reduction, useful both for the company's own net-zero reporting and as evidence for the sustainability-conscious customers who increasingly write decarbonisation expectations into their contracts. Cutting fuel use also reduces Climate Change Levy exposure, so the saving shows up in the energy bill, the carbon account and the levy line at once. We quantify all three from your real consumption data so the business case reflects the full value, not just the headline energy saving.

An illustrative example

As an illustrative composite based on a typical industrial scheme, a commercial laundry in an IETF-eligible sector, using gas to raise process hot water above 75C, installed a 600 kW high-temperature heat pump using a natural refrigerant, recovering waste heat from the wash process and lifting it to a 78C process flow. It delivered around 1,800,000 kWh of heat a year at an SCOP near 3.2 at that high flow temperature and saved in the region of 330 tonnes of CO2 a year, with an IETF grant meeting a significant share of capital, reduced Climate Change Levy exposure, and decarbonised process heat that became a tender differentiator with sustainability-conscious clients. The figures are illustrative and depend on your process, fuel use, waste-heat availability and eligibility, and on the temperature your process actually requires, which we establish from the survey rather than assume.

For lower-temperature space heating, compare commercial air-source heat pumps or a hybrid boiler-replacement retrofit, and for serving several buildings from a central energy centre see heat networks and ambient loops. When you are ready, request a feasibility study, review the cost guide and funding routes, or read the heat pump FAQs.