Takeda Vienna AHEAD: heat pump plus steam compressor to 11 bar(a) / 184°C
Public sources (SPH and the NEFI AHEAD demo card): at Takeda's Vienna pharmaceutical site, a butane heat pump and a Spilling steam compressor are reported to deliver about 2.5 t/h at 11 bar(a) / 184°C. Commissioning is given as September 2025. Not independently metered here.
Engineering data
- Case type
- Public-source case
- Data status
- public_source
- Industry
- Pharma
- Source temperature
- 70°C
- Sink temperature
- 184°C
- Temperature lift
- ≈ 114 K
- Heating or cooling duty
- 1700 kW
- Architecture
- SPH steam-generating heat pump to about 115–120°C, then a Spilling steam compressor to 11 bar(a) / 184°C
- Result status
- SPH states commissioning in September 2025. The demo card says scientific monitoring beyond 4,000 h was still planned, with results expected in 2026. A COP near 4.4 is quoted for the heat-pump stage (steam near 120°C), not for the 184°C delivery after the steam compressor.
- Key risk
- Do not read the stage COP of about 4.4 as the COP of 184°C steam. Long-run monitored results were not yet published in the card used here.
- Existing system
- Natural-gas steam for pharmaceutical production and sterilization; waste heat available from site refrigeration / an existing hot-water heat pump
- Refrigerant
- R600 (n-butane) on the heat pump; R718 (water) on the steam compressor
- COP
- Not disclosed
- Annual savings
- Source-reported: up to about 1,600 t/a CO₂ and up to about 80% of steam-related emissions at the site, with nearly CO₂-free steam for about seven months — not remeasured here
- Estimated payback
- Not disclosed in the sources used here
Project background
The AHEAD project (Advanced Heat Pump Demonstrator) is a named installation at Takeda's pharmaceutical campus in Vienna, with AIT and SPH, funded under Austria's NEFI programme. It is a public-source process-steam case, separate from this site's anonymized field surveys.
Narrative inputs
Source: about 70°C hot water. Sink: steam at 11 bar(a) / 184°C, about 2.5 t/h and 1.7 MW thermal as reported for the heat-pump rating. The first stage uses n-butane; the second stage compresses steam.
Heat pump solution
The SPH heat pump turns the hot-water source into steam near 115–120°C (about 1.9 bar(a) in one SPH description). A Spilling steam compressor then raises that steam to about 11 bar(a) and 184°C for pharmaceutical duties.
COP & savings
Reported heat-pump COP is about 4.4 at a maximum heating capacity of 1.7 MW while producing steam near 120°C. Delivery to the plant is described as 2.5 t/h at 184°C after vapor compression. CO₂ savings up to about 1,600 t/a are source claims. The demo card lists operating hours as commissioning in September 2025, with further monitoring results expected in 2026.
Investment / ROI notes
Capital cost and payback are not in the sources used here. Emissions claims stay labeled as project statements.