Heat pumps (HPs) which use low temperature (waste) heat and renewable energy sources to provide high temperature heat are widely regarded as a critical technology for reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the industrial sector. The HighLift technology considered here can provide high temperature output heat up to around 200 °C. This article focuses on the Life Cycle Cost Analysis (LCCA) method and its use for the economic evaluation of different industrial-scale heating methods i.e., a Stirling-cycle-based heat pump, a fossil fuel oil-fired boiler (OB), a bio oil-fired boiler (BOB), a natural gas-fired boiler (NGB) and a biogas-fired boiler (BGB). Many input parameters and boundary conditions apply to Sweden, where the considered heat pump is located. Findings from this study suggest that when comparing the life cycle costs of all these technologies Stirling-cycle-based heat pumps give more economic benefits than fossil fuel or biofuel-fired conventional boilers. For a typical 15-year lifespan, its total life cycle cost decreases in following order OB > BOB > NGB > BGB > SC-HP. The study indicates that replacing conventional boilers with a Stirling-cycle-based heat pump, despite an increased initial cost, would still be a cost-effective heating option due to lower operating and maintenance costs.

The use of Stirling-cycle-based heat pumps in high-temperature applications and waste heat recovery at an industrial scale is of increasing interest due to the promising role in producing thermal energy with zero CO2 emissions. This paper analyzes one such technology as developed by Olvondo Technology and installed at the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca in Sweden. In this application, the heat pump used roughly equal amounts of waste heat and electricity and generated 500 kW of steam at 10 bar. To develop and widen the use of a high-performance high-temperature heat pump that is both economically and environmentally viable and attractive, various analysis tools such as exergy analysis and life cycle assessment (LCA) can be combined. The total cumulative exergy loss (TCExL) method used in this study determines total exergy losses caused throughout the life cycle of the heat pump. Moreover, an LCA study using SimaPro was conducted, which provides insight into the different emissions and the overall environmental footprint resulting from the construction, operation (for example, 1, 8, and 15 years), and decommissioning phases of the heat pump. The combined results were compared with those of a fossil fuel oil boiler (OB), a bio-oil boiler (BOB), a natural gas-fired boiler (NGB), and a biogas boiler (BGB).