Low-Emission Commercial Laundry Facility — Port Kembla, NSW

National Industrial Transformation Program

Start date

1 December 2025

End date

31 October 2027

Project Overview

Alsco Uniforms is delivering a low-emission commercial laundry facility in Port Kembla, NSW, supported by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

This Project focuses on integrating advanced heat-energy and operational technologies beyond the base facility design to significantly reduce emissions and improve energy efficiency across commercial laundry processes.

The initiative reflects Alsco Uniforms’ commitment to innovation, sustainability, and circular resource management by demonstrating scalable solutions that can help decarbonise industrial laundry operations across Australia.

Project Summary

The Project involves heat-energy upgrades incorporated into the development of a new commercial laundry facility designed to operate with lower emissions and improved energy performance.

Key technologies being implemented include:

Commercial heat pump systems
Steam-heated ironer heat recovery systems
Automation and robotics systems
Load management and energy storage
Advanced metering and monitoring systems

These integrated solutions aim to optimise energy use, capture and reuse heat, and enhance operational efficiency — contributing to measurable emissions reductions at the facility.

Action

The Project will involve installation and commissioning of the following:

Local deployment of Rheem’s commercial heat pump. The development will be done at Rheem’s NSW sites to meet the laundry sector requirements and demonstrate Rheem’s capabilities for local customisation.
Steam Heated Ironer Heat Recovery to recover excess heat from condensate and create a water ring loop to heat incoming mains town supply water rather than heating from ambient temperature in washing process.
Automation and robotics for sub sorting and machine loading, as well as the new ironer heat recovery technology from Thielen Automation. This will create energy, water and chemical savings and significantly enhance flexibility in production to leverage load management and storage.
Heat Pump Load management and storage will enable smart use of heat pumps and thermal storage in non-production hours (Site will operate 6 am to 3 pm). The design will enable use of excess solar on site after production hours or at times when solar export is restricted, for hot water generation and load management.
Condensate Heat Recovery to provide low pressure steam to washroom for water heating in laundry machinery rather than boiler feed tank heating. Boiler feed tank will instead be heated using boiler economiser.
Metering will be included in the project to provide real time data, energy performance measurement and knowledge sharing.

Outcome

The objectives for the Project will be achieved through the following Outcomes:

Demonstration and commercialisation of new emission reduction technologies in the Australian commercial laundry sector
Advancement of energy efficient process heat technologies
Development of Australian heat pump customisation and supply capability (through Rheem Australia);
Building industry capabilities for future decarbonisation initiatives.

Project Partners

Acknowledgement

This Project received funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) as part of ARENA’s National Industrial Transformation Program.

Disclaimer

The views expressed herein are not necessarily the views of the Australian Government, and the Australian Government does not accept responsibility for any information or advice contained herein.