National Technical and Economic Potential of Low-Grade Industrial Waste-Heat Power Generation in the United States: A Sector-Level Assessment Benchmarked to DOE and EIA Data

Abstract

Low-grade industrial waste heat is a large but difficult-to-quantify U.S. energy resource because national energy statistics measure fuel consumption and end uses more directly than recoverable heat streams at specific temperatures. This study develops a transparent sector-level methodology for estimating the technical and economic potential of electricity generation from industrial waste heat below 150 °C while explicitly separating measured federal data from engineering assumptions. Final 2022 Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey data from U.S. EIA (2026a) provide the manufacturing fuel-consumption basis, while the national waste-heat temperature inventory of U.S. DOE (2008), the DOE Manufacturing Energy and Carbon Footprints, the DOE waste-heat-to-power benchmark, and current electricity-price information provide external constraints. The model assigns sector-specific sub-150 °C waste-heat fractions and representative temperatures as explicit scenario parameters rather than treating them as DOE or EIA observations. Under the base case, 15,742 TBtu/yr of manufacturing fuel consumption yields a modeled gross sub-150 °C waste-heat resource of 724 TBtu/yr. After temperature-dependent capture and net conversion assumptions, this corresponds to 5.60 TWh/yr and 853 MW of technical nameplate potential at a 75% capacity factor. Chemicals, paper, petroleum and coal products, and food account for the majority of the modeled resource. A source-temperature-dependent capital-cost screen, 20-year project life, 7% discount rate, 2.5% annual fixed O&M, and the 2025 U.S. average industrial electricity price of 8.62 cents/kWh produce a base economic potential of approximately 494 MW. Monte Carlo propagation gives a 5th–95th percentile technical range of 579–1190 MW and an economic range of 262–693 MW. The study therefore provides a reproducible national screening framework rather than a claim of site-level project readiness. Results indicate that low-grade waste-heat power is smaller than DOE’s high-temperature WHP technical benchmark but can still represent a material distributed generation opportunity if project costs, operating hours, and source temperatures are favorable.