Rising energy prices and public concerns about climate change will encourage the industrial sector to seriously examine current energy usage, supply arrangements, and implement medium to long term strategies to mitigate these issues. Renewable energy sources, such as solar thermal, and process integration tools such as Pinch Analysis are likely to be increasingly utilised by industrial energy users to improve sustainability and energy efficiency. Pinch analysis demonstrates that to maximise heat recovery and minimise hot and cold utility use, heat should not be supplied below the pinch temperature. Numerous industries including dairy, food and beverage, pulp and paper, have relatively low pinch temperatures (<100°C). The concept of solar boosting of waste low grade heat streams above the pinch temperature is explored in this paper. The non-continuous nature of both the supply (solar) and demand (process) limits the usefulness of traditional pinch analysis techniques that assume steady state conditions and operation. Advanced pinch analysis techniques that can accommodate non-continuous, variable rate, and batch processes have been developed and incorporated into a software package. These techniques have been applied to a theoretical dairy site to boost 40°C waste process water, which previously was discharged, to 80°C for use in the process. Operational and design aspects of the solar collectors based on experimental observations are also discussed. It is demonstrated that pinch analysis tools are invaluable for assessing the available opportunities for using solar thermal as a means for waste heat recovery, upgrading low-grade streams to higher temperatures, and storage strategies.