Defining the potential of usable waste heat in industrial processes with the help of pinch and exergy analysis

This paper aims at giving a definition for waste heat in analogy to the definitions of natural resources and reserves. It aims also at presenting a method for identifying, characterizing and quantifying the available waste heat of an industrial system that can be converted into a useful form. A distinction is made between avoidable and unavoidable waste heat. In order to measure the entire useful potential of waste heat, exergy is used for characterization