LAUSR

Abstract Utilization of industrial waste heat within the company is a rather common practice, whereas the external use, outside the company, is less common and in the focus of this paper. The aim of the paper is to provide the first comprehensive overview of all implementations of external use of industrial waste heat in Austria. Thus the paper is the first to describe key energy figures, e.g. the share of industrial waste heat in district heating. Moreover, three hypotheses are tested: H1 industrial waste heat originates from heat recovery, H2 external provision prefers space heating as sink, and H3 implementations are only realized if they are highly profitable. In order to gather details on all Austrian external waste heat implementations a literature and internet survey was conducted. Forty-five implementations were identified. They have a capacity of 600 MW and deliver 1.75 TWh/a. Two thirds of the projects were implemented after 2010, implying that awareness and/or technoeconomic feasibility are improving. The amounts observed imply: 2% of industrial energy end-use are reused; this provides 2.5% of the end-use for space heating or 7.3% of district heating energy. Fifty percent of the cases base on combustion (H1 rejected); three implementations provide process heat (H2 verified); data on profitability is insufficient (H3 remains unanswered).