Korea opens heat pump push to cut industrial emissions

South Korea's environment ministry said Thursday it convened industry, research institutes and energy experts in Seoul to plan the electrification of industrial process heat, a step it casts as essential to cutting the country's greenhouse gas output.

The forum, held at the Han River Flood Control Office in Seocho District, examined heat pump technology at home and abroad and looked at how to spread it through Korean industrial sites and what policy support that would require. Heat pumps draw heat from low-temperature sources such as air and water and deliver it at a higher temperature, using a small amount of driving energy, usually electricity, to supply a larger amount as heat.

Industrial units differ from the household kind. Where domestic models run at 8 to 20 kilowatts for heating and cooling, industrial heat pumps are measured in megawatts and tap waste heat and unused sources from factory processes to produce process heat, typically steam above 100 degrees Celsius.

Industry accounted for about 38 percent of national greenhouse gas emissions in 2024, and more than 70 percent of the sector's energy consumption goes into producing heat, so replacing fossil-fuel boilers with electric alternatives is the ministry's chosen route to bringing those emissions down. The International Energy Agency projects heat pumps will play a central role in decarbonizing industrial process heat below 400 degrees Celsius, while the International Renewable Energy Agency expects the global installed stock of industrial heat pumps to reach 80 million units by 2050.

The ministry is already funding demonstration work through the Korea Institute of Energy Technology Evaluation and Planning. One project uses waste heat at about 38 degrees Celsius from a paper mill to produce hot water above 100 degrees Celsius through a 3.5-megawatt large-capacity, high-temperature-difference heat pump. A second strand of research is working on components and systems that can produce steam above 180 degrees Celsius.

"To achieve carbon neutrality and energy savings in the industrial sector at the same time, the development of high-temperature heat pump technology is essential," Minister Kim Sung-hwan said, adding that the ministry would expand research budgets in advance to localize core technology and actively foster a domestic heat pump manufacturing industry.

The ministry said it will use the views gathered at the forum to strengthen its research and development roadmap for industrial heat pumps and to sharpen plans for cutting carbon from the energy systems of industrial complexes and from industrial processes, along with support measures for the shift to electrified heat.