Decarbonization for Pharma Manufacturing: A Sustainable Heating Strategy

NORTHAMPTON, MA / ACCESSWIRE / January 24, 2023 / CRB

Foto: Accesswire

Moving past natural gas and electric boilers to achieve the industry's decarbonization goals.

For pharma and biotech manufacturers, keeping up with this cultural and regulatory shift toward meaningful climate action and corporate sustainability goals is a complex challenge. It takes a lot of energy to manufacture a drug; sourcing that energy sustainably involves a matrix of innovative solutions. As sustainability in pharma manufacturing gains momentum, there is one opportunity for significant energy efficiency and decarbonization that is often overlooked: the plant's heating design.

A sustainable heating strategy for pharma

Too often, engineering and design teams reduce their heating design's carbon footprint by simply electrifying their steam and heating hot water boilers. There are good reasons for that: electric resistance boilers are a familiar technology, and they perform reliably (hot water boilers are capable of heating water to 180°F, for example). Plus, the pathway from gas-powered to electricity-powered steam or hot water generation is relatively straightforward, with no complex mechanical engineering required.

But thinking of electric boilers as the best path toward decarbonization for a pharma facility is a mistake. Choosing to rely heavily on electrified steam and hot water boilers diverts facilities away from much more efficient energy strategies. For that reason alone, electric boilers ought to be the last resort within pharma's sustainability strategy.

The intense electrification from an electric boiler strategy also precipitates a surge in energy demands that some utility districts may not be ready for, which could actually strain the plant's redundancy strategy-does your plant have sufficient backup and energy storage available in case of a grid failure?

Decarbonization for the pharma industry goes beyond electric boilers

A pharma facility's heating needs are vast. Sterilizing cleanroom environments, producing water for injection (WFI), maintaining a comfortable working temperature, and managing snowmelt-all of these functions rely on a source of heat. The thing is, only a small fraction of them actually require steam boilers.

Sterilization is the exception. Today, it's only possible using steam, and steam relies on boiler technology. Thus begins a slippery slope towards "boiler dependence": once a pharma facility has steam boilers in place for sterilization, they're incentivized to use that steam elsewhere in order to keep the boilers online and avoid frequent shutdown and startup cycles. In other words, the steam boilers often becomes the go-to heat source for all functions simply because it's there.