Sustainable Factory Heating Solutions: Your Guide To Going Green
For years the focus of heating and cooling solutions for commercial buildings has been on efficiency. However, it’s now also necessary for factories and other industrial facilities to demonstrate a commitment to eco-friendly operations.
Installing green heating solutions for factories has many other benefits too, including reducing waste, appealing to consumer values, and more.
Technology innovations mean there are a variety of options to choose from when implementing sustainable factory design. This post will analyse the sustainable heating systems that are most appropriate for a factory setting, along with advice on how to make the switch to green infrastructure.
Benefits of Sustainable Factory Design
Embracing a sustainable approach across all aspects of a factory or manufacturing facility can yield many long-term benefits. For businesses, this includes:
Many sustainable measures result in lower running costs by increasing energy efficiency. According to a statistical analysis of greenhouse gas emissions, ‘Gaseous fuel use in the UK is dominated by the use of natural gas for heating buildings and for electricity generation’. Heating and cooling indoor large spaces like factories especially often require large amounts of energy when using inefficient systems.
In the UK there are many different sustainability regulations and standards that apply to commercial buildings and factories. One example is the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES), which currently requires Non domestic private rented properties to have a minimum energy performance rating of at least E, unless they have a valid exemption in place under the 7-year payback test Incorporating green infrastructure into your factory will help your business activities meet UK sustainability standards without incurring additional costs.
By its nature, sustainable solutions usually require revising existing processes to see how they can be improved. Innovations in how a factory runs can help improve many kinds of business operations.
In addition to the potential for more efficient production lines, sustainable factories can help promote a business’ products to consumers. Many people place a high value on sustainability when choosing who they buy from, so if you’re able to incorporate a sustainable ethos into your factory infrastructure it can be an effective marketing strategy.
Concerning industrial factory heating especially, sustainable solutions can help improve air quality throughout space. This is because systems that use geothermal, solar, or electric power don’t generate as many pollutants.
Many factories built in the 20th century were designed to rely on unsustainable energy sources such as natural gas for their heating. Reserves of natural gas around the world are finite, with the UK importing roughly 50% of its gas from elsewhere. Not only is this unsustainable, it’s also costly and damages the environment through producing greenhouse gases. The scarce nature of unsustainable resources is a large reason why switching to green factory systems will save businesses money.
Eco-Friendly Factories’ Contribution to Net Zero
Originally published in October 2021, the government’s Net Zero Strategy: Build Back Greener policy has laid out various proposals and policies for the decarbonising of the UK economy. The goal is for all UK emissions to reach net zero by 2050, with a large part of the focus falling on commercial operations in the manufacturing sector.
Factories don’t just contribute to emissions through manufacturing processes. The day-to-day running of a factory facility can have an impact on the environment, which is why areas like sustainable factory heating should be a priority. Any factory heating strategy which uses less fossil fuel in favour of renewable energy, or reduces energy consumption overall, will contribute towards the government sustainability target.
Sustainable Factory Heating Systems
If you want to improve the efficiency and sustainability of your factory, the first area of focus should be how you heat the space. You might have strong insulation and airflow in place, but it won’t matter if your facility uses outdated heating and cooling units. On top of this, when deciding how to heat a warehouse or factory efficiently it’s important you select systems that are appropriate for the space.
Find our top picks for the most sustainable heating systems for factories below.
Electric Far / Infrared
Infrared heating solutions are quickly becoming a popular choice of heating for customers with commercial and industrial properties who simply want to provide spot heating to smaller spaces within a factory and warehouse. Infrared and Far-infrared work using electromagnetic radiation that heats objects and people they encounter rather than heating the whole air space.
As a result, FIR heat is an efficient option for providing spot heating at lesser kws and is further enhanced by its many hanging variations, such as wall-mounted or ceiling suspended, for the maximum spread of heat.
Factory destratification
Championed by the Carbon Trust, a carefully designed and effective Destratification system in open-plan buildings with high ceilings can significantly reduce energy consumption by up to 30% and lower associated energy bills.
As heat naturally rises all buildings will be affected to some degree by thermal stratification, causing a significant imbalance of temperatures from the lower ground to ceiling height. Destratification fans are installed at ceiling height and with the purpose of the fans to combat heat loss from above by recovering excess heat that gathers beneath the ceiling and return it to the lower ground where the heat is of most benefit to the workforce or production/manufacturing processes.
Although destratification doesn’t provide heating itself, it’s a solution that’s extremely effective when used in tandem with a sustainable warm air heating solution..
Factory Air Conditioning
Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems are vital in many industrial spaces to control the environment and air conditioners are an excellent source of temperature control due to their dual heating and cooling functionality.
Modern air conditioning systems are leaps and bound ahead of their predecessors, thanks to greatly improved average Coefficient of Performance (COP) ratings of 4, delivering 4 kw of power for every kw, enabling commercial buildings to be more energy-efficient and environmentally friendly, and helping to reduce your carbon footprint.
Warm Air Heating for Factories
Warm air heating systems are effective at providing heat for large open plan commercial and industrial spaces. As the name suggests, these systems work by heating the air rather than using convection heat. The result is heating that reaches the desired room temperature far quicker than traditional fixtures such as traditional wet central heating systems.
Warm air heating systems can be fueled by natural gas, LPG and electricity (single and 3-phase) and with the electric option being the preferred choice for customers who may have very stringent net zero targets, or those customers potentially facing pushback from their landlords about introducing new gas fired heating because of challenges with EPC ratings, or simply those customers wanting a greener and more environmentally friendly option to gas.
However, not every building will have the infrastructure and/or electrical supply to heat the building fully with electricity or want the ongoing expense of running an electric fuelled system when comparing the difference in cost between a kw/h of commercial gas v commercial electricity.
Therefore, steps to a more sustainable heating system for your factory could be as simple as ensuring that the new gas-fired heating system you choose is first of the highest efficiencies and as with all warm air heaters supplied by OKEL are all ERP compliant in accordance with the latest eco design directive, fully equipped with modulating technology to ensure they only use fuel when it’s necessary to maintain a constant temperature, and Hydrogen blend ready so that they are equipped to run off a mix of gas and hydrogen should this greener hybrid fuel type become readily available throughout the UK’s gas networks.
Heat Pumps
Heat pumps have been the buzzword in recent years for domestic homeowners and house builders as the UK strives to achieve Net Zero.
Heating your Factory with heat pump technology can bring its own unique challenges including very costly installations compared to other heating solutions, far greater energy demands due to the size of the building, poor insulation values/infrastructure that can require costly adaptations to suit heat pump technology, and heat pumps not always having the power to achieve high temperatures that may be needed for quality manufacturing.
Heat pumps can however also provide reliable heating and significant energy savings for medium and large-sized factories although this requires a detailed assessment from an expert and plenty of research before committing to spend.
Sustainable Bespoke Factory Heating Systems Designed and Installed
When you come to us, you’ll get an expertly designed heating system that has been created in accordance with Net Zero requirements. This means you don’t even need to specify that you’d like a sustainable solution – all our designs aim to maximise energy efficiency.
Thanks to our expertise and range of heating solutions, we provide complete design flexibility, so your sustainable systems fit seamlessly within the factory design layout.
At OKEL, we’ve helped businesses with factory heating installations solutions that comply with UK sustainable regulations and allowed them to expand their operations. Get in touch to discuss which of our commercial heating and cooling systems are right for you.