Industrial facilities could turn some of the energy they currently throw away into electricity, with a new investment round backing projects that capture waste heat from heavy industry.
Kanin Energy has raised up to $100m in new equity financing to develop, build and operate waste heat-to-power and other on-site power projects across Canada and the US.
Industrial waste heat converted into electricity (Representational image). Kanin Energy.
The financing includes up to $50m from S2G Investments and another $50m from the Canada Growth Fund. The money will support projects across sectors such as oil and gas, cement, steel and metals.
The technology targets a large source of energy loss in industrial operations. Kanin says as much as 58% of energy consumed by industrial processes can be lost as waste heat.
Waste heat becomes electricity
Instead of allowing that heat to escape into the atmosphere, waste heat-to-power systems capture it and use it to generate electricity without requiring additional fuel.
Kanin’s systems use organic Rankine cycle turbines, a technology that has been deployed for more than four decades. These systems can use heat from industrial processes to vaporise an organic working fluid, which then drives a turbine connected to a generator.
The approach allows facilities to generate electricity from an existing byproduct rather than adding another fuel source.
“Waste heat has largely been an underused solution, but as these constraints persist, there’s a clear and growing incentive to capture it and put it to productive use,” said Marisa Sweeney, principal at S2G.
The technology could become more relevant as industrial companies face rising electricity costs and constraints on grid connections. On-site generation can reduce the amount of electricity that facilities need to draw from the grid while providing another source of power.
Kanin said its waste heat systems are designed to produce baseload electricity that can be supplied directly to industrial facilities or local power buyers.
Industrial heat gets second life
The company already has an operating waste heat-to-power project supplying electricity to the University of Dayton. Its commercial portfolio includes about 50MW of waste heat-to-power projects either operating or under construction. One project under development is the Mewbourn WHP Power Project in Weld County, Colorado.
The new financing is intended to expand that pipeline while allowing Kanin to finance, develop, construct, and operate the projects itself. Its Energy-as-a-Service model means industrial customers can use the resulting power infrastructure without having to develop and finance the projects independently.
“Kanin was built on the belief that industrial facilities already hold the solution to their own energy challenges, they just need the right partner to execute,” said Janice Tran, CEO of Kanin.
The concept is relatively straightforward, but its potential application is broad. Industrial plants continuously produce heat as part of processes that require high temperatures. Recovering even part of that energy could turn an unavoidable byproduct into useful electricity.
“Investing in scalable clean tech solutions strengthens Canada’s economy and helps create new, reliable power for heavy industries,” said Yannick Beaudoin, president and CEO of Canada Growth Fund Investment Management.
With its latest funding, Kanin plans to scale waste heat-to-power and other on-site generation projects across North American heavy industry, focusing on energy costs, reliability and emissions.