How to electrify industrial process heat

Energy & decarbonization · 9 min read · Updated 2026-05-30

The technologies for electric process heat, how to match them to temperature duties, and how grid capacity, tariffs and flexibility shape the business case.

Why electrify process heat

Process heat is one of the largest uses of energy in industry and one of the hardest to decarbonise. As electricity grids add low-carbon generation, switching heat from fossil fuels to electricity becomes a direct route to cutting emissions — the carbon intensity of the heat falls as the grid cleans up, with no further action on site.

Electrification also brings operational benefits: precise control, fast response, no on-site combustion emissions, and often lower maintenance. The challenge is cost and capacity — electricity is usually more expensive per unit of heat than gas, and large electric loads need grid capacity. Getting the technology and the tariff right is what makes the switch work.

Matching technology to temperature

There is no single electric-heat technology. The right one depends on the temperature and the heat-transfer mechanism the process needs:

• Heat pumps — most efficient option for low- and medium-grade heat, delivering several units of heat per unit of electricity.
• Electric (resistance) boilers — simple, compact, near-100% efficient at point of use, good for steam and hot water where a heat pump cannot reach.
• Resistance and immersion heating — direct, controllable heat for fluids, tanks and air.
• Induction heating — fast, localised heating of conductive materials, common in metals processing.
• Infrared and dielectric heating — surface and volumetric heating for drying, curing and similar duties.

The biggest single efficiency decision is to use a heat pump wherever the temperature allows, because resistance methods convert electricity to heat one-to-one while a heat pump multiplies it.

Heat pumps first, then the rest

Because a heat pump can deliver several units of heat per unit of electricity, and resistance heating delivers only one, the order of preference for electrification follows the temperature ladder. Serve the lowest-grade duties with heat pumps and mechanical vapour recompression; use electric boilers and resistance heating for the medium and higher duties a heat pump cannot reach; and reserve combustion fuels or hydrogen for the genuinely high-temperature processes.

This sequencing minimises both running cost and the grid capacity the site has to secure, because every duty served by a heat pump draws a fraction of the power a resistance equivalent would.

Grid capacity and connection

Electrifying heat can multiply a site's electrical demand, and the local connection may not have the headroom. Securing additional capacity can be slow and costly, so it belongs early in any electrification plan, not as an afterthought.

Two strategies ease the constraint. First, reduce the load before sizing the connection — recovered heat, efficient heat pumps and insulated surfaces all shrink the electrical demand. Second, manage the demand profile so that not all loads peak together, which lowers the capacity that has to be contracted. Both reduce the connection a site needs to buy.

Tariffs, flexibility and storage

Electric heat exposes a site to electricity prices, which vary far more than gas through the day. This is a risk but also an opportunity. Loads that can shift in time — heating thermal stores, batch processes, hot-water tanks — can run when electricity is cheap and clean and pause when it is expensive.

Thermal storage turns this into a real lever: heat is generated when power is cheap and drawn down when it is dear, decoupling heat demand from the moment of generation. Combined with a time-of-use tariff and good controls, demand flexibility can substantially cut the cost penalty of electric heat and even turn it into an advantage on a flexible grid.

How to plan an electrification project

A sound plan works from demand outward:

• Map heat demand by temperature and by time, and separate the duties that can be electrified easily from the hard ones.
• Cut demand first — recover waste heat, fix combustion and insulate hot surfaces — so the electrical load is as small as possible.
• Assign technology by temperature, using heat pumps wherever they reach.
• Engage the grid connection early and design the demand profile to limit contracted capacity.
• Use tariffs, flexibility and thermal storage to manage running cost.

Electrification is rarely a single switch; it is a staged programme that follows the cleaning of the grid and the falling of electricity costs, with efficiency done first so the electrified load is lean.

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