Factories use huge amounts of steam for brewing, pasteurising, sterilising, cooking and processing. Much of that heat still comes from gas. In this episode of Sustainability Forward Podcast Wrishi Sutradhar and Carmina Flume speak with James Macnaghten about why a meaningful part of this problem may be more straightforward to tackle than sectors such as steel or cement.
There is a strong link between industrial heat and the power system. We are building more wind and solar, which means more periods of very cheap and sometimes surplus electricity. At the same time, factories need reliable heat every day.Thermal storage creates a way to connect those two things: use electricity when it is abundant, store it as heat, and turn it into steam when the factory needs it.
James also makes a pragmatic case for hybridisation. Rather than trying to remove gas overnight, industrial sites can add electric heat alongside existing boilers and switch between the two depending on price and availability.
Also discussed some of the realities around developing new climate tech: why hardware does not scale like software, why industrial customers have little tolerance for “minimum viable” products, and why timing can matter just as much as the technology itself.
