A brewery goes green – with an innovative high-speed solution
Futraheat heat pump saves significant energy
High energy consumption is one of the biggest challenges in many industrial sectors. Against this backdrop, British company Futraheat has developed a heat pump solution based on turbo compressor technology. This significantly reduces energy costs and CO2 emissions can be cut to zero. The high speeds required for the application are achieved with high-speed drives and sine filters from KEB Automation. The innovative solution is already in use in a brewery and is proving so efficient that it saves up to 80 per cent of the energy used in wort boiling.
The principle of the heat pump can be seen in more and more homes: thermal energy for heating and hot water is generated from the ground, water or air – and greenhouse gas emissions are reduced. But there are also interesting alternatives to oil and gas available for industry. For example, Futraheat, a company based in south-west London, has developed a heat pump solution that recycles existing process heat to generate energy. At the heart of Futraheat's ‘Greensteam’ heat pump is ‘TurboClaw’. This is a turbo compressor with a low volume flow, which means that it is used in relatively small applications – such as heat pumps with an output of less than one megawatt.
What sets TurboClaw apart
“Conventional turbo compressors pose technical and economic difficulties because they must be operated at extremely high speeds. This reduces their performance and increases design and production costs. In contrast, TurboClaw delivers a comparable pressure ratio at less than half the speed of a conventional turbo compressor,” says Tom Taylor, CEO of Futraheat. In addition, TurboClaw is mechanically more robust against liquids and particles in the refrigerant flow, which gives it an advantage in many industrial applications. This puts TurboClaw in competition with displacement compressors, piston and screw machines. However, one difference is that it is oil-free, has a compact design and low costs per kW.
In manufacturing, heat pumps with outputs of less than one megawatt are by far the most common performance class. TurboClaw-based heat pumps are designed for exactly this range and work with both hydrofluoroolefin (HFO) or hydrocarbon refrigerants in closed heat pumps and with steam in an open MVR (mechanical vapour recompression) cycle. The solution is ideal for temperatures between 100 and 200 degrees Celsius – a temperature range in which many processes in the food and beverage industry, as well as in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries, take place.
High-Speed Drives and Sine Filters in operation
The pilot customer for the use of Futraheat's turbo compressor solution is Hepworth Brewery in the United Kingdom. Since high speeds are necessary for the efficient operation of the turbo compressor on site, Futraheat relied on a customised system solution from KEB for the implementation. “High-speed applications require powerful and efficient drive designs and corresponding cooling systems. For TurboClaw, we need motor speeds of 45,000 revolutions per minute. We achieve this with an air-cooled COMBIVERT F6 high-speed drive with 125 kW,” says Mark Macdonell, Sales Director at KEB UK. The drive is supplemented by the appropriate sine filter technology from KEB, which supplies the motor with a sinusoidal voltage. This prevents additional losses due to ripple currents from the drive converter switching frequency in the stator and rotor. The result: less heating of the magnets in the rotor and a longer service life for the motor.
During testing, one challenge was that the generator supply became unstable under load. However, a solution was quickly found for this as well. “KEB is strongly positioned in the high-speed sector. This includes our ability to perform HIL simulations. We were thus able to create precise drive parameterisation for Futraheat by combining the motor and sine filter characteristics,” says Macdonell. The smooth cooperation with the KEB teams in the UK, the USA and the headquarters in Germany also helped to overcome any obstacles that arose during the technical implementation. Taylor adds: "My team had already worked with KEB before the application in the brewery. So it quickly became clear that the drive technology customised to our needs and the fast support from KEB are exactly what we need for our TurboClaw solution."
How the brewery benefits
Heat supplied by high-temperature steam is an essential part of the processes in breweries and other industrial sectors. The heat is usually supplied by oil- or gas-fired boilers. Futraheat's customer, Hepworth Brewery, is taking a different and significantly more sustainable approach. The brewery uses the Greensteam heat pump with a thermal output of 300 kW, which generates steam at a temperature of up to 130 degrees Celsius. By comparison, conventional heat pumps are capable of supplying hot water up to around 80 degrees Celsius. The system, which is based on compressor technology operated by KEB, recovers waste heat at 100 degrees Celsius. Instead of releasing this into the atmosphere, the heat is used to process steam between 120 and 130 degrees Celsius. This steam is then fed back into the brewing kettle, eliminating the need for heat generated from fossil fuels. In the first pilot phase, a prototype TurboClaw compressor was used, which is now being replaced by Futraheat's first series compressor with a larger 128 kW motor. This enables a wider range of functions that are also suitable for other applications outside the brewery.
Due to the low-temperature lift required in the brewery, the coefficient of performance (ratio of heat pump power consumption to heat output) is up to 6, which means that the energy requirement for the wort boiling process is reduced by about 80 per cent. ‘The CO2 savings are similar when using mains electricity, but can drop to zero when the unit is powered by locally generated solar power,’ says Taylor.
In principle, the heat pump has the capacity to supply all four brewing lines, but so far it has only been operated in one brewing line as a pilot project. As the results to this point speak for themselves, the brewery is now looking into how the technology can be used more widely across the entire site in order to benefit from the energy-saving potential across the board.
How TurboClaw came about
TurboClaw originated at the world-renowned Imperial College London, where the inventors were initially faced with the challenge of developing a small, oil-free compressor for applications where oil-lubricated piston compressors could not be used. The idea to focus on developing high-temperature heat pump technologies ultimately came from the founders of Futraheat. The aim was to reconcile the technical advantages of TurboClaw with the growing commercial opportunities arising from the need to decarbonise industrial heat supply. And there are already plans for the future, as CEO Tom Taylor explains: "We will develop market solutions in collaboration with established OEMs and heating solution providers. We are working with two companies on applications for food and beverages, data centres and MVR for general manufacturing.” Marc Macdonell adds: “KEB is delighted to contribute to Futraheat’s success with its stateoftheart drive technology. We are happy to continue supporting them in their efforts to achieve CO2 neutrality.”
About Futraheat
Futraheat, founded in 2021, is a UK-based cleantech company developing hightemperature heat pumps that recover industrial waste heat using its patented TurboClaw compressor. The technology delivers high efficiency at lower rotational speeds, enabling costeffective decarbonization for sectors such as brewing, food production, chemicals, and data centers.
