Electrification from Wastewater Heat Recovery

AII funded this project to accelerate the decarbonization of thermal energy use in textile manufacturing, which remains one of the largest and hardest-to-abate emission sources in the supply chain. By combining heat recovery with electrification, the solution offers a pathway to significantly reduce or eliminate fossil fuel use in wet processing - especially when paired with renewable electricity. The project also addresses critical barriers to adoption, such as technical complexity, high upfront costs, and limited supplier confidence, by generating real-world feasibility data, business cases, and implementation insights across multiple geographies. This makes it a strong fit for CSP’s goal of validating and scaling high-impact solutions that can unlock system-level emissions reductions.

This project pilots the electrification of thermal energy in textile wet-processing by installing wastewater heat recovery systems combined with heat pumps across 17 mills: 4 in Italy, 10 in India, and 2 in Türkiye. Each facility undergoes a feasibility assessment, on-site analysis, and tailored system design to recover waste heat and convert it into usable hot water with a hot water heat pump, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The project supports mills through technical evaluation, commercial proposals, and optional implementation, while also generating insights on technical, financial, and market barriers to scaling this solution across diverse manufacturing contexts.

This solution has strong scalability potential as it targets one of the largest emissions sources in textile manufacturing, thermal energy, using a combination of proven heat recovery technology and electrification. It can be retrofitted into existing wet-processing facilities and is applicable across diverse production contexts, making it relevant for a large share of Tier 2 suppliers globally. However, scaling will depend on key enabling conditions, including access to affordable renewable electricity, availability of capital for relatively high upfront investments, and appetite for change. Importantly, the project is designed to capture both implementation successes and barriers, generating critical insights that can help unlock broader adoption across regions and accelerate industry-wide transition away from fossil fuel-based heat.