Introducing a Calculator for the Environmental and Financial Potential of Drain Water Heat Recovery in Commercial Kitchens

Isabel Schestak,A Prysor Williams,Jan Spriet,David Styles

doi:10.3390/w13243486

Isabel Schestak, A Prysor Williams + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/w13243486

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Abstract

Food service providers like restaurants, cafes, or canteens are of economic importance worldwide, but also contribute to environmental impacts through water and energy consumption. Drain water heat recovery from commercial kitchens, using a heat exchanger, has shown large potential to decarbonise hot water use across food services, but is rarely deployed. This work translates previous findings on the technical feasibility and heat recovery potential for commercial kitchens into a publicly available calculator. It facilitates decision-making towards recovery and reuse of the freely available heat in kitchen drains by estimating both financial costs and payback time, as well as environmental burdens associated with the installation and environmental savings from avoided energy consumption. Environmental burdens and savings include, but are not limited to, carbon emissions. Further, the tool highlights key aspects of the technical implementation to understand installation requirements. The tool is freely available and could contribute to the uptake of heat recovery in the food service sector, ideally in conjunction with policy support through financial incentives or subsidies.

Highlights

The food service sector is an important economic part of the global tourism and hospitality industry
In 2019, consumers in the Republic of Ireland spent approximately 1300 Euro per person on food and non-alcoholic drinks consumed outside their home [7,8]. These statements relate to pre-pandemic times, but it can be expected that the tourism and food service sector will continue its prepandemic growth, once recovered [9,10]
The tool is based on the research and findings from [15,16], which estimated the heat recovery potential as well as the financial and environmental performance of kitchen drain heat recovery based on monitoring campaigns in the United Kingdom (UK) and Ireland

Summary

Introduction

The food service sector is an important economic part of the global tourism and hospitality industry. Food services are enjoyed by local visitors as well as at their places of work or education They include restaurants (including those in hotels), pubs, cafes, catering services, canteens (e.g., in schools, businesses, or hospitals), and quick services (e.g., takeaways, fast food) [4]. In 2019, consumers in the Republic of Ireland spent approximately 1300 Euro per person on food and non-alcoholic drinks consumed outside their home [7,8]. These statements relate to pre-pandemic times, but it can be expected that the tourism and food service sector will continue its prepandemic growth, once recovered [9,10]

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