delfort specialty paper: Turboden 12 MWth heat pump plus MVR for process steam
Public sources (Turboden, 17 Feb 2026; IEA HPT demo card): a large heat pump plus mechanical vapor recompression at a delfort specialty-paper mill, reported at 12 MWth and about 20 t/h of superheated steam. Not independently metered here.
Engineering data
- Case type
- Public-source case
- Data status
- public_source
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Source temperature
- 8–17°C
- Sink temperature
- 150–180°C
- Temperature lift
- ≈ 133 K
- Heating or cooling duty
- 12000 kW
- Architecture
- Closed large heat pump (multi-stage centrifugal, isobutane) in series with MVR — not an open water-vapor cycle alone
- Result status
- Turboden announced full operation on 17 Feb 2026 and said startup COP was about 10% above the guaranteed value. The IEA card records about 2,000 test hours from July to October 2025. Vendor wording calls it the largest steam-producing heat pump built; this site does not audit that ranking.
- Key risk
- Design COP is about 2 at a very large temperature lift; the guaranteed COP itself is not published in the press note. CO₂ totals differ between the two sources.
- Existing system
- Fossil-fired steam for specialty-paper production; low-grade process waste heat available on site
- Refrigerant
- Isobutane (IEA HPT demo card); steam side is mechanical vapor recompression
- COP
- 2
- Annual savings
- Two public figures, not reconciled here: Turboden cites about 19,000 t/a CO₂ avoided (calculated Scope 1); the IEA card cites about 15,000 t/a
- Estimated payback
- Not disclosed in the sources used here
Project background
delfort, a specialty-paper group, and Turboden (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) published a steam-electrification project that upgrades mill waste heat with a large heat pump and then raises steam pressure with MVR. The mill city is not named in the sources used here.
Narrative inputs
Heat source: process waste heat reported near 10–20°C. Heat sink: superheated steam reported at 3.4 bar(a), 150–180°C, about 12 MWth and about 20 t/h. Working fluid on the heat-pump side: isobutane, per the IEA HPT demo card.
Heat pump solution
A closed isobutane heat pump lifts low-grade heat; MVR then brings the steam to the pressure the paper process already uses. Turboden describes the two machines as coordinated across operating phases, inside an existing room with limited footprint.
COP & savings
IEA HPT demo card: design COP about 2, installation year 2025, about 2,000 test hours (July–October 2025), estimated CO₂ savings about 15,000 t/a. Turboden press release (17 Feb 2026): unit fully operational, startup COP about 10% above the guaranteed value, calculated Scope 1 avoidance about 19,000 t/a. This site has not remeasured either figure.
Investment / ROI notes
Investment and payback are not in the sources used here. Treat the two CO₂ totals as source-reported calculations, not a site audit.