Olvondo Technology’s HighLift heat pump delivers heating and cooling for industrial applications using a Stirling cycle to compress and expand helium (R704) gas, with temperature outputs above 200°C (392°F), according to the company’s Managing Director, Stefano Vittor.
The company, founded in 2016 and jointly owned by Norwegian industrial groups LOS Gruppen and Westcon, has HighLift units deployed in five installations, with over 175,000 hours of combined operation time, Vittor told NaturalRefrigerants.com. Olvondo now offers the unit in 750kW (213TR) capacity modular skid-based packages. The unit can use heat sources ranging from 0 to 100°C (32 to 212°F) to achieve temperature lifts of more than 160°C (288°F), based on the company’s latest installation.
“We are addressing any application with a process temperature of less than 250°C [482°F] and/or a cooling demand at or above −10°C [14°F],” Vittor said. “By providing both cooling and process heat in the same operation, we reduce energy costs and support decarbonization by replacing gas burners.”
How it works: HighLift operates in an alpha configuration of a reverse Stirling cycle, with the heat pump containing a four-cylinder double-acting engine driven by an electric motor and using waste heat as a heat source.
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Two pistons compress the helium as it is concentrated toward the hot side of the heat pump while two others expand it as the gas is concentrated toward the cold side. In one revolution, the helium undergoes state changes that approximate the ideal Stirling cycle, according to Olvondo.
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Since the refrigerant stays a gas throughout the cycle, the heat pump has few source- and sink-temperature restrictions, the company said. It added that it can also handle large and sudden changes in inlet temperature.
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Norwegian competitor Enerin also produces a high-temperature heat pump (HTHP) using Stirling cycle technology with helium as the working gas but with a gamma configuration that uses half as many power pistons and a displacer to shuttle the gas. Vittor said that Olvondo’s market advantage comes from “significantly more field operating experience” than any other heat-pump manufacturer using the technology.
Growing business: Vittor provided details of the company’s installations and its projects currently under construction.
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In Gothenburg, Sweden, a HighLift system delivers 2.3MW (654TR) of 10bar (145psi) steam for pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca using recovered heat from the facility’s chillers. In Norway, TINE, the country’s largest dairy producer, uses the technology to produce 10bar steam at temperatures ranging from 175 to 184°C (347 to 363°F) with a COP of 1.7‒1.9 using the local district heating network as the heat source, which operates between 90 and 100°C (194 and 212°F). Vittor reported that both systems are “running mostly smoothly.”
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Two other HighLift installations in operation include a system for Norwegian juice and jam producer Lerum, providing ice water and 7bar (102psi) steam, and a system for Dutch dairy producer FrieslandCampina, providing 4.5bar (65psi) steam. Lerum installed the first heat pump in 2015 and added a second one in 2022.
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Olvondo also has installations under construction at several other locations, where HighLift units will provide both cooling and steam, including a Roche pharmaceutical facility in Basel, Switzerland, a Diageo beverage production facility in the U.K. and a project with Tetra Pak, a global supplier of production lines for the soft-drink and dairy industries.
Scaling and installation notes: Olvondo is preparing to ramp up production, with plans to manufacture 15 HighLift units a year, Vittor said.
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LOS Gruppen’s Bølmo plant manufactures the units. The existing facility could produce up to 50 units annually.
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System installation typically takes two to three weeks, with CAPEX costs running between €900‒1,000 ($1,030‒1,150) per kilowatt of heating capacity, roughly on par with other HTHPs on the market, Vittor said.
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The company offers a Heat as a Service model, which enables stable and transparent energy costs for end users, he added.
Quotable: “We have many requests outside of Europe for the technology, and we plan to expand production when we are ready,” Vittor said. “In the meantime, we serve overseas markets through distributors like Tetra Pak.”
“We are addressing any application with a process temperature of less than 250°C [482°F] and/or a cooling demand at or above −10°C [14°F].”
Managing Director, Stefano Vittor, Managing Direcgtor at Olvondo Technology
