Your Refrigeration System Already Produces the Heat Your Winery Needs
Turn waste heat into hot water for your winery during harvest & off-peak periods, without burning a drop of diesel or gas.
The status quo
Two systems running in parallel, sharing nothing Most wineries run a large refrigeration plant during harvest – their dominant electrical load, while simultaneously firing boilers or gas water heaters to produce the 65°C hot water needed for cleaning and processing. These systems coexist without exchanging energy. The refrigeration plant dumps its heat rejection to atmosphere. The boiler burns diesel or gas from scratch. Both are costly. One is unnecessary.
The opportunity
Heat recovery turns your plant into a hot water asset. Every unit of cooling your winery’s refrigeration plant delivers generates a corresponding heat rejection. At harvest, when cooling demand peaks, so does heat availability, precisely when cleaning volumes are greatest. With the right system design, that rejected heat is captured, upgraded to 65°C via a heat pump, and delivered to your hot water circuit, replacing fossil fuel entirely, or drastically reducing what remains.
Thinking of replacing your winery’s diesel boiler with electric resistance heating?
Simply swapping diesel for electric resistance heaters is electrification without optimisation. Resistance heating converts electricity to heat at a 1:1 ratio. A modern heat pump can deliver 5-6 units of heat for every unit of electricity consumed, meaning you’d pay 5-6 times less for the same hot water, every day, for the life of the asset. The capital cost difference is recovered quickly. The operating cost difference never is.
Not just harvest. Designed for every production phase.
Harvest & peak production Simultaneous cooling and heating
When the winery refrigeration plant runs at capacity, heat recovery is at its most abundant. Condenser heat is captured and delivered directly to the hot water circuit, maximum offset, minimum additional cost.
Shoulder & off-peak periods Heating without the cooling load
When cooling demand is low or absent in the winery, proven heat pump designs continue to produce process hot water efficiently. Hot water supply doesn’t stop when harvest does, shoulder production periods are fully covered.
How the system works
What you gain
Fossil fuel elimination
Diesel and gas boilers removed from the energy mix, not replaced with a costly electric equivalent, but made largely unnecessary.
Operating cost reduction
Heat pump efficiency can deliver 5-6 times more hot water per kWh than resistance heating. Wasted energy becomes productive value.
Proven NZ technology
Heat pump systems for primary industry hot water have been successfully installed across multiple NZ producers. Established,
not experimental.
Why now
- Rising energy costs
- Decarbonisation commitments
- Export market scrutiny
- Proven NZ installations
- Harvest & off-peak applicability
New Zealand’s wine sector faces growing pressure from export markets on sustainability credentials, alongside continued energy cost increases. Heat recovery and heat pump integration is a capital investment that pays through reduced operating cost, lower emissions, and measurable progress against decarbonisation targets, backed by a technology partner with deep primary industry experience across New Zealand.
