German company GEA is investing an initial £10 million in British low-carbon heat company Caldera with ambitious plans to help industry decarbonise.
Caldera’s storage boiler
Caldera has developed a unique storage boiler which takes low-cost renewable electricity and stores it as heat, ready to be used whenever required. It is ideally suited to industries which currently use gas boilers to generate steam — including breweries.
GEA plans to use Caldera’s technology as part of a holistic solution to allow industrial customers an affordable route to electrifying their heat.
In the UK, around a fifth of all industrial energy demand is for heat up to 200°C — usually delivered as steam — and the majority of this heat is generated by gas.
Green electricity is affordable, but intermittent. By charging whenever the sun shines, Caldera’s boilers utilise cheap on-site solar power as well as green energy from the grid and store it as heat until it’s needed.
In many cases, Caldera’s storage boilers can be combined with GEA’s heat pumps to offer a compelling route to decarbonising industrial process heat. A combined system joins the benefits of a highly-efficient heat pump with the flexibility and fast response time of a storage boiler.
“The investment from GEA is a game-changing opportunity for our company and a strong endorsement of our technology,” said Caldera chief executive James Macnaghten. “In addition, there is a very strong cultural fit between both companies, driven by sustainability and engineering excellence.
“We look forward to seeing electric storage boilers become a widely-adopted technology in industries from brewing and distilling to food and pharma, with the ultimate goal of reducing carbon emissions for the benefit of all.”
