Turning Waste Into Watts: How Enjay Is Unlocking Industry’s Untapped Energy Source

Industrial processes account for a third of global energy consumption — yet a large share of that energy simply disappears. It goes out through ventilation systems as hot exhaust air, unrecovered and unused. For most companies, it has been an accepted loss. Enjay is proving otherwise.  
 
The Swedish cleantech company has developed a patented technology that recovers heat from polluted exhaust air. Food manufacturers, pet food producers, laundries, foundries, and other process-intensive industries all rely on powerful ventilation systems that expel large volumes of hot, contaminated air. Rather than letting that energy disappear into the atmosphere, Enjay enables companies to recover and reuse it, reducing both operating costs and emissions.
 
The opportunity is larger than it might sound. Recovering and reusing all available waste heat globally could yield roughly 3,500 terawatt-hours of energy per year — more than the annual output of solar, wind, or hydropower individually, and comparable to the entire global output of nuclear power. In other words, one of the world’s largest untapped energy resources is already being generated. It simply isn’t being used.

Finding the right customer — and the right business model

Since entering the market, Enjay has completed nearly 200 installations, demonstrating that its technology works across a range of industrial applications. But over the past two years, the company’s focus has shifted beyond proving the technology to refining the commercial business case. 

Rather than pursuing broad market coverage, the team has narrowed in on larger, multinational food producers — and within that, pet food manufacturing in particular as the production processes involved are an especially strong fit for Enjay’s technology. 

Working closely with customers—including through a two-year co-innovation programme with Mondelēz—Enjay realised that technology wasn’t the primary obstacle. Industrial companies are generally already good at recovering the heat they technically can. Enjay’s technology unlocks a further layer of recovery that wasn’t previously accessible — but the capital expenditure required to get there was proving to be a barrier. Customers wanted the energy savings, but they didn’t always have the budget to invest upfront.

So Enjay changed the business model. 

Today, the company offers Energy-as-a-Service. No upfront investment required from the customer, with Enjay earning its revenue directly from the energy savings delivered. It removes the capital barrier, lowers the threshold for adoption, and aligns Enjay’s incentives directly with customer outcomes. 

A partnership that could unlock global scale

Perhaps the clearest signal of Enjay’s momentum is its emerging partnership with Bühler Group, one of the world’s leading suppliers of food processing equipment. Bühler has an established base of large industrial customers who are actively working to reduce their natural gas consumption and reach net zero — and Enjay’s technology is now part of how they plan to get there. 

The numbers are compelling: Enjay’s solution can help Bühler’s customers reduce natural gas usage by around 25%, with potential to go further through the addition of high-temperature heat pumps. For Bühler, it means a concrete tool to help existing customers decarbonise. For Enjay, it means access to hundreds of large industrial sites where retrofit opportunities — delivered under the Energy-as-a-Service model — are ready to be unlocked.

Capital for the next stage of growth

In early May, Enjay closed a new investment round supported by existing investors. 

The round gives the company the runway it needs through to 2028 to build out its customer base and let the current pipeline mature into signed agreements. 

The technology is proven. The business model has been refined. A global equipment partner is on board. And a market worth terawatt-hours is waiting.