Systems and program product for heat exchanger network energy efficiency assessment and lifetime retrofit

Heat exchanger network analysis and design program product to manage heat exchanger network energy efficiency and retrofits for an industrial facility having a plurality of process streams comprising a plurality of hot process streams and a plurality of cold process streams, the program product comprising a set of instructions, stored on a tangible computer readable medium, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the operations of:

• identifying one or more process streams that primarily control a pinch point location for an existing heat exchanger network;
• determining an optimal pinch point location that provides one or more of the following:
• a maximum waste energy recovery and a minimum number of required heat exchanger units for a given set of process conditions;
• and
• determining an optimal heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence extending between a current heat exchanger network retrofit project satisfying a current desired waste energy recovery goal and a future heat exchanger network retrofit project satisfying a final waste energy recovery goal.

Heat exchanger network analysis and design program product to manage heat exchanger network energy efficiency and retrofits for an industrial facility having a plurality of process streams comprising a plurality of hot process streams and a plurality of cold process streams, the program product comprising a set of instructions, stored on a tangible computer readable medium, that when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the operations of:

• receiving data indicating a current heat transfer structure of an existing heat exchanger network for an industrial facility;
• identifying one or more process streams that primarily control pinch point location for the existing heat exchanger network;
• identifying a set of one or more hot process streams having a highest impact on waste energy recovery upon reducing its respective stream specific minimum temperature approach value;
• identifying a maximum desired waste energy recovery goal anticipated over a life of the heat exchanger network defining a final waste energy recovery goal;
• and
• determining an optimal heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence identifying a plurality of heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequentially, the heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence extending between a current heat exchanger network retrofit project satisfying a current desired waste energy recovery goal and a future heat exchanger network retrofit project satisfying the final waste energy recovery goal, the final waste energy recovery goal requiring a larger amount of waste energy recovery than the current desired waste energy recovery goal, the heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence configured so that each subsequent project within the heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence does not contradict any of the previous projects within the heat exchanger network retrofit projects sequence.