Smarts = Efficiency
This is relatively old news but I’m fond of it because it is so darned clever. Who knew gas pipelines had step-down (they call them “letdown”) stations like electricity does? The difference is there is a whole lot of mechanical stuff going on that has to be compensated for (along with a “breeze”, when you decrease pressure you decrease temperature). Currently the gas companies use fuel to reheat the lower pressure gas. Tsk, tsk, tsk.
To transport natural gas across the continent, natural gas pipelines operate at high pressures and considerable energy must be injected to achieve the pressures required. This high pressure must be reduced when the gas enters lower pressure systems that deliver gas to homes and businesses. Currently, there is no commercial use made of the energy that is lost at that stage. Additionally, when pressure is reduced, the gas cools. To ensure reliable pipeline operations, the cooling must be offset — by burning some gas in boilers, reheating the supply to an acceptable temperature.
Here is a much more productive solution. Use a turbine to create electricity when you reduce the pressure. Clever, no? But there’s more. If you use a fuel cell to produce more electricity you can use the waste heat (those puppies get VERY hot) to warm the low pressure gas - eliminating the need for boilers. Sweet.
…announced initiating production of the first multi-megawatt hybrid product, generating ultra-clean electricity while recovering energy normally lost during natural gas pipeline operations.
Operating at natural gas pipeline letdown stations, the system generates 2.2 megawatts (MW) of ultra-clean electricity.
With the new DFC-ERG system, high-pressure gas passes through a turbine, capturing some of the energy that was otherwise lost, and turns it into usable electricity. The integrated fuel cell also electrochemically converts some of the gas into low-impact, environmentally friendly electricity. Finally, heat normally generated by the fuel cell warms the gas to its proper distribution temperature — thus eliminating the boiler (and its emissions).
At 2.2 Mw it’s like having a single tower wind farm that runs 24 hrs a day. Since these would be installed at letdown stations along natural gas pipelines it would be very distributed power close to energy users (that’s why there is a letdown station there).
The combined system can achieve electrical efficiencies over 60 percent, with low noise and virtually zero smog emissions.
It’s not like this is going to satiate our energy appetite but I’ll take every 100 Mw we can get - especially since this was formerly wasted energy. Now, will the gas transport comapanies take advantage of this? How can we find out if they do/don’t?
- Posted in : Environment, Positive Change
- Author :Rt
Comments»
Almost all of the energy that is produced at the power plant is lost by the time it gets to your home. This is a great way to cut out some of that loss.
[...] specific news is encouraging. The natural gas industry is trying to make its pipeline more [...]