High-Temperature & Process / Industrial Heat Pumps: Commercial heat pump installers

Why industrial process heat is the hardest, and most rewarding, work for a commercial heat pump installer

Heating space is one thing; raising process heat and hot water to 70, 80 or 90C and above for manufacturing, laundries and food production is another discipline entirely, and it is where specialist installers separate themselves from generalists. Industrial sites burn gas or oil around the clock to drive a process, so energy is often a major operating cost and the Climate Change Levy adds to the pain. A high-temperature or process heat pump replaces that combustion with electrically driven heat, frequently recovering waste heat from refrigeration, compressors or process streams that would otherwise be thrown away. For an energy-intensive site the prize is large: a deep cut in both cost and carbon, and a decarbonised process that increasingly becomes a tender differentiator with sustainability-conscious clients. As commercial heat pump installers we treat this work as the technical summit of the portfolio, because it demands high-temperature design, natural-refrigerant expertise and careful integration with a live production process.

The engineering is more exacting than space heating in every respect. Delivering 70 to 90C and above means working at the edge of what heat-pump cycles can do efficiently, which is why high-temperature duties increasingly rely on natural refrigerants such as propane, ammonia and CO2 rather than the synthetic gases being phased down under F-Gas. Those refrigerants bring their own siting and safety regime. Recovering waste heat means understanding the process, not just the plant room. This is install work that has to be designed by people who understand both the heat pump and the factory it serves.

Waste-heat recovery is what often turns a marginal industrial case into a compelling one, and it is the part most generalist installers overlook. A great many industrial processes reject large quantities of low-grade heat continuously, from refrigeration condensers, air compressors, ovens, dryers or process effluent, and that heat is usually being thrown to atmosphere. A high-temperature heat pump can take that rejected heat as its source and lift it to a useful process temperature, which means it starts from a warmer point than ambient air and so runs more efficiently than a heat pump working from cold outside air. Mapping those waste streams, deciding which are worth capturing and integrating them with the live process without disrupting production is a piece of process engineering as much as plant engineering, and it is exactly the work that justifies bringing in a specialist installer rather than a general heating contractor. The reward for getting it right is twofold: a lower running cost because the heat pump works from a warm source, and a smaller electrical demand because less lift is needed, which can ease the grid-supply constraint that limits so many industrial electrification projects.

What a typical install looks like and how we size it

An industrial process heat pump from us spans a wide range, from 100 kW up to 2 MW or more thermal, with high-temperature units delivering 70 to 90C and above flow, often tied into waste-heat recovery loops from refrigeration, compressors or process streams. The plant compound footprint varies entirely with the process. Heat delivered runs from about 200,000 to 5,000,000 kWh a year, removing a substantial 35 to 900 tonnes of CO2 annually, reflecting how much fossil fuel an industrial process can consume. Sizing here is driven by the process duty and demand profile, not floor area, so we work from your actual energy data and the process requirement, and wherever possible we design the system to harvest waste heat first and lift only the shortfall, because recovered heat is the cheapest heat on the site. We specify to BS EN 14511 and 14825 so quoted performance is comparable, recognising that the SCOP at high process flow temperatures, often around 3.2 in practice, is naturally lower than for low-temperature space heating but still transformative against gas.

Process duties also differ from space heating in being far less weather-driven and far more tied to production. A laundry, a dairy or a food line wants its process heat whenever it is running, which on many sites is most of the day and much of the year, so the heat pump runs at high utilisation rather than idling through mild weather. That high duty cycle is good for the economics, because the capital is working hard, but it raises the premium on reliability and on resilience, since unplanned downtime in process heat stops production, not just comfort. We design with that in mind, sizing for the genuine process load, providing for redundancy or peaking where a production line cannot tolerate an outage, and integrating the controls with the existing process so the heat pump serves the line rather than fighting it.

Costs, payback and tax relief

Industrial and process projects are large, typically £200,000 to £3,000,000 or more, with a simple payback around 9 years that can be considerably shorter where energy is a dominant cost and waste-heat recovery lifts the overall efficiency. The capital tax position is a major lever: full expensing gives companies a 100% first-year deduction with no upper cap, permanent from April 2026 and worth up to 25p in the pound at the 25% corporation-tax rate, so a multi-million-pound installation can generate a substantial first-year tax saving. The Annual Investment Allowance covers unincorporated businesses and any ancillary works outside full expensing. Reduced Climate Change Levy exposure adds to the saving on energy-intensive sites. Because the duties are large and the savings real, the IETF grant route below frequently transforms the payback. Our cost guide sets out how capital, energy intensity and waste-heat recovery interact in the business case.

Funding routes in detail

This is the sub-sector where the headline commercial grant lives. The Industrial Energy Transformation Fund supports fuel-switching to industrial heat pumps and waste-heat recovery for industrial sites and data centres in eligible SIC codes, manufacturing, recovery and recycling, data centres, and newer sectors including controlled-environment horticulture, industrial laundries and textile renting. It runs to a total of up to £185m across the fund for 2024 to 2028, with an SME minimum grant of £75,000, typically a 30 to 50% intervention, and the technology must be at TRL 7 or above; projects must complete by 31 March 2028. Operated by DESNZ through periodic competition windows, it is built precisely for the high-temperature process work on this page, and the £7,500 domestic Boiler Upgrade Scheme of course does not apply. Any taxpaying business can stack full expensing or the Annual Investment Allowance on top, and large industrial campuses serving multiple buildings may also fit the Green Heat Network Fund. We assess your SIC eligibility, confirm the TRL position of the proposed technology and build the IETF application around the engineering. See our grants and funding page.

Compliance and sector considerations

High-temperature process plant carries the most demanding compliance of any heat-pump work, and we design for it from the outset. The F-Gas phase-down of high-GWP refrigerants pushes high-temperature duties towards natural refrigerants, R290 propane, ammonia and CO2, which bring DSEAR and ATEX considerations for flammable-refrigerant plant; we design the siting, ventilation and safety provisions to suit and carry out all refrigerant work with F-Gas certified engineers. BS EN 378 governs the safety and environmental design of the refrigeration and heat-pump system. IETF eligibility hinges on the site's SIC code and the technology's TRL, both of which we confirm before building a case. As with all large plant, the electrical supply is a critical early check, an industrial-scale heat pump can add very significant load, so the DNO conversation and any supply upgrade start at feasibility because they are often the longest-lead item alongside the manufacturing constraints of working around a live process.

How we approach this kind of project

Industrial work demands that we understand your process before we touch the plant. We model the project from your real energy data and the process duty, map where waste heat is currently being rejected so we can recover it first and lift only the shortfall, and design the high-temperature system to the duty rather than to a catalogue. We size for self-consumption of the recovered and generated heat, specify natural-refrigerant plant where the duty requires it and design the DSEAR and ATEX provisions to match, and we confirm the DNO supply position early. We assess IETF eligibility against your SIC code and the technology TRL and build the grant application around the design. The changeover is planned around your production calendar so the process is protected, often phased so the line never loses its heat source, and you receive a fixed-price proposal with the full model attached, and the install carries an insurance-backed warranty. The standard throughout is that the performance we quote is specified to BS EN 14511 and 14825 and modelled from your data, never a sales figure, so the cost and carbon case you sign off is one we can stand behind once the plant is running on your floor.

An illustrative example

As an illustrative composite based on the kind of work commercial heat pump installers carry out, and not a real named client: a commercial industrial laundry, an IETF-eligible sector, using gas to raise process hot water above 75C, had a 600 kW high-temperature natural-refrigerant heat pump installed that recovered waste heat from the wash process and lifted it to around 78C process flow. At an SCOP of about 3.2 at that high flow temperature it delivered roughly 1,800,000 kWh of heat a year and saved in the region of 330 tonnes of CO2. An IETF grant met a significant share of the capital, the waste-heat recovery lifted overall efficiency, Climate Change Levy exposure fell, and the decarbonised process heat became a differentiator when tendering to sustainability-conscious contract clients. The figures are illustrative and depend on your process, energy data, refrigerant choice and grant award.

For multi-building industrial campuses a central scheme may suit better, covered on our heat networks and ambient loops page, and for sites whose process can accept a phased start our hybrid retrofit page may apply. When you are ready, see the cost guide, the funding routes, the commercial heat pump FAQs, or request a feasibility study from your energy data.