There is a high degree of freedom and flexibility in the way to integrate renewable process heat in industrial processes. Nearly in every industrial or commercial application various heat sinks can be found, which are suitable to be supplied by renewable heat, e.g. from solar thermal, heat pumps, biomass or others. But in contrast to conventional fossil fuel powered heating systems, most renewable heating technologies are more sensitive to the requirements defined by the specific demand of the industrial company. ...

An accurate method to predict annual heat load profiles is fundamental to many studies, e.g., preliminary design or potential studies on renewable heating systems. This study presents a method to predict annual heat load profiles with a daily resolution for industry and commerce, based on an analysis of 800 natural gas load profiles (≥ 1.5 GWh/a). To derive heat load profiles, these natural gas load profiles are normalized and those with a potentially non-linear relationship between heat demand and natural gas ...