GE Oil & Gas has received GE ecomagination certification for hot gas expander technology that works with a waste gas recovery system to help refineries significantly reduce their energy costs while also lowering emissions.
The hot gas expander for GE’s Power Recovery Air Train features GE’s latest technology and meets the rigid standards of ecomagination, the GE corporate initiative to address challenges such as the need for cleaner, more efficient sources of energy, reduced emissions and abundant sources of clean water.
“Energy accounts for about 50% of the total operating costs for a refinery,” said Jeff Nagel, vice president-global services for GE Oil & Gas. “Wasting flue gas, which is largely air and is a by-product of the refinery processes, means wasting a tremendous opportunity to reduce energy costs and the carbon footprint of the entire refining industry. A Power Recovery Air Train equipped with a GE expander can maximize the use of this waste gas to produce the additional power a refinery needs to operate.”
An average-sized GE expander for power recovery system is designed to recover 18 megawatts of power, thus avoiding the use of the same amount of energy from the grid, which can save a refinery operator nearly $9M electricity costs each year. The technology also avoids the emissions of 244,000 metric tons of CO2 each year – the equivalent of removing 44,000 U.S. passenger cars from the roads for a year.
Compared to a system without the new GE expander, an 18-megawatt Power Recovery Train with the new expander is designed to recover more than 148,000 megawatt-hours of electricity from waste energy every year, or the amount used by 13,900 U.S. households.
Previously, power recovery air trains were equipped with older expander technology that was unable to meet customer requirements for four to five years of uninterrupted run time. Benefiting from improvements in materials and aerodynamics achieved over the past decade, the latest GE expander can withstand heavy crude oil corrosion and erosion to deliver improved reliability and availability and meet the four to five year performance standard. “This capability sets our waste gas recovery solution apart from others available in the industry,” Nagel noted.
“With our ecomagination program, we strive to introduce and modify technologies that will be better for the environment. It's good for nature, for people and for business,” said Claudi Santiago, a GE senior vice president and president and CEO of GE Oil & Gas.
SOURCE: GE Oil & Gas
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Thanks to Mr. Milt Beychok for his postings & initiative.
Now we have ~16 Posts and 6 users in our Forum.
Request you to make it successful & welcome your suggestions for improvement.
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I have launched a page called "Videos" for useful visuals on different chemical aspects or sometimes for some FUN also.
So Enjoy them.
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We all face a very common problem of how to measure the performance of an inefficient pump in absence of flow meters particularly in case of cooling water pumps where usually there is no flow meter.
Based on my past experience in energy audit for last several years I found that we know the pump is not upto the mark based on its physical apperance of corrosion, leakages, sound etc. but how to prove it based on data that too when it is delivering the design head when you measure discharge & suction pressures. This is very confusing.
Read the simple method to verify the performance. You only need the performance curve originally supplied by the manufacturer.
This is a very common problem that all of process engineers face. How to estimate the performance sufficient enough to make a decision on improvement measures be it overhauling, replacement etc.
The confusing thing is that we are able to see the problems physically, the corrosion, leakages, sound, extra power consumption BUT still feel doubtful as pressure gauge is showing a good reading near to design value on the discharge side.
If we consider this discharge head & plot it on curve to find out the flow rate it is also similar or near to design value giving a good efficiency on mathematics. This is the point where most of us fails. So what to do?
My simple approach is to start measuring from shut off head.
First Read the curve for Q & H and put it in Excel table.
Use simple X-Y plot to draw this H Vs Q curve.
Try to fit this data in a cubical equation, which is sufficient mostly with R-sqaured = 0.999 or better generally.
Calculate H value for each Q in the same table based on curve fit equation & check for any significant deviation.
If deviation is found fine tune your fit data either by dividing flow rate or by multiplying using a common factor which should be incorporated in the final equation. This is a problem related to Excel as it gives large numbers in exponential form after truncation. Otherwise, if you are using any other data fit software you don't need to do it.
Now start your experiment.
Measure shut off head & power at this condition.
Measure discharge pressure at several flow rate values by opening the discharge valve slowly. Also record the power for each point. You should consider ~4-5 points including 100% full open condition.
At least two points are absolutely necessary with shut off & 100% opening.
Plot these points along with original design data.
Calculate flow rate from the curve based on equation derived above but considering shift in shut off head.
This flow rate value is the MAXIMUM possible value of flow which your pump can give in the given operating condition.
Actual flow rate will be further less depending on the corrosion, leakages etc.
However, you can judge the performance which may be sufficient enough to decide the replacement or modification in the system.
This will also give you an idea about your system requirement - static head and dynamic head both. Thus you can also decide if a pump with lower head is suitable or not.
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