HeatGrid

Turning Industrial waste heat into community saving.

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Inspiration

After hearing Bill Laranga speak about reusing sports equipment at the opening ceremony, we were inspired to think about other resources that get wasted. That led us to look at the large amounts of heat energy wasted by factories. We began thinking about how we could redirect it to nearby heat consumers, turning something that would otherwise be wasted into a useful resource.

What it does

The platform maps heat sources and connects them with nearby heat consumers. It then identifies potential connections between industrial facilities that waste heat and nearby facilities that could make use of it. The platform then analyzes whether building the required infrastructure to connect them makes sense financially, based on distance and infrastructure costs. Using this information, it calculates an estimated return on investment timeline to help determine whether it makes economic sense.

How we built it

We built the website using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for the frontend, and AWS Location Services for the map. We used Node.js, Express, and TypeScript on the backend to handle the data and calculations, such as matching heat sources with consumers and estimating ROI. Finally, we used AWS to deploy it so anyone could access it online.

Challenges we ran into

One of the main challenges was finding reliable data, since detailed information about industrial waste heat is not publicly available. Another challenge was estimating the costs of infrastructure required to connect heat sources with nearby consumers and determining whether those connections would make financial sense.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of how quickly we learned to combine multiple technologies to turn our idea into a usable prototype. We successfully built a web platform that maps industrial heat sources to consumers and then evaluates whether connecting them is financially viable.

What we learned

Throughout this project, we learned how to build a full-stack application and gained experience with frontend development using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, backend development with Node.js, Express, and TypeScript, and working with AWS Location Services for mapping and deploying the application using AWS.

What's next for HeatGrid

Next, we would like to expand the platform to areas outside of Toledo and work with industry to gather more accurate data on the infrastructure costs and the amount of heat that can be transferred. We would also explore applying this approach to other sectors, such as water and electricity.

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