Energy Academy
Heat Recovery Fundamentals2 / 13

Heat Recovery Overview & Value

Why recover waste heat, payback timescales, and business case.

9 min read · Jacob Willis, Net Zero Lead · Last reviewed July 2026


Waste heat recovery has a simple appeal: the energy has already been paid for once, at full fuel price, and recovering it means not buying the same heat again from a boiler. That is why well-matched recovery projects show some of the best paybacks in the whole field, often under two years and sometimes under one. This lesson makes the business case concrete, works a flue-gas example at the platform's reference prices, and sets out the typical paybacks and the practical obstacle (space and integration) that most often complicates them.

In this lesson

  • 01The value of recovered heat
  • 02Typical paybacks
  • 03The practical obstacle: space and integration
  • 04Sources and further reading