Abstract

Chile is one of the countries with most growing industries worldwide due to their mining and manufacturing industries. Nevertheless, at the same time there is a lack on energy generation and processes efficiency. The objectives of this paper are to estimate the amount of available industrial waste heat derived from the manufacturing industry in Chile, to locate these heat sources geographically, to assess the best technologies to be used to take advantage of this heat, and finally, to estimate the environmental savings of its reuse. Results showed that the sectors with the highest potential for the use of residual heat are food and beverages with an average accumulated potential of 62.9 PJ, basic metals with 21.5 PJ, chemical products with 15.1 PJ, paper products with 10.8 PJ, and non-metallic minerals with 10.6 PJ. With these data, the energy generation in Chile could be more efficient as well as the industrial processes could save more energy, reducing costs and raw materials.