In coming years, waste-heat recovery systems will be saving companies of all sizes millions of dollars a year in energy costs .

“Whether you realize it or not, you’re getting close to the mother lode,” says Tom Casten, CEO of waste-heat “recycler” Recycled Energy Development (RED), about the potential of using cast-off heat to lower consumption of power.

Waste-heat recovery takes heat generated from industrial processes, power generation equipment or even air-conditioning systems, and uses it to create steam to power separate turbines.

The result is more energy for every dollar spent on fuel or utility-provided electricity.

Waste-heat recovery is part of a basket of technologies that harvest “opportunity fuels” — usually byproducts of the energy-consuming firm’s main product.

Aside from systems like RED’s, methane from farms and wastewater treatment plants that is used for powering turbines, as well as refining plant and animal fats from food processing into transportation fuels, could be considered “opportunity fuels.”

Unlike installing rooftop solar panels, each potential waste-heat reduction project is different and requires different technology.

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