Media Coverage

December 12, 2011

Waste Heat To Power From A Stationary Internal Combustion Engine

In the 4th Quarter addition of the Gas Machinery Journal  Gulf Coast Green Energy’s white paper on small scale waste heat to power generation highlights the efficiency of capturing waste heat for on-sight power generation. Converting waste heat to power as a form of distributed generation is becoming a serious part of many company’s fiscal and environmental plan.  The benefits to the company installing Gulf Coast Green Energy waste heat to power equipment include lower cost of power, fixed cost of power, internal rates of return from 12-22%,  and significantly reduced emissions into the atmosphere.

An excerpt from the Gas Machinery Journal:

“Internal combustion engines (ICE) create a great deal of waste heat which goes out of the exhaust stack and into the atmosphere. A recent demonstration project at an oil and gas well-head in Texas has shown that a new combined heat and power technology is cost effective at producing fuel-free/emission-free renewable electric power and helps to resolve overheating issues that are so common with ICE engines, especially in warmer months.  The operational benefits of the new combined heat and power generation technology include:

• On-site power generation
• Reduction of internal heat thereby reducing downtime due to overheating and often eliminating overheating entirely
• Greatly reduces the heat going into the atmosphere

Converting waste heat to power provides many advantages for companies including off-setting operational cost, on-sight generation of fuel-free, emission free electric power and the other public relations advantages for using green energy.

This new concept is being demonstrated by Gulf Coast Green Energy (GCGE) on a natural gas compressor engine located at a natural gas well field in Jackson County, Texas.  GCGE assists companies in generating fuel-free, emission-free green energy by capturing waste heat and turning it into electric power. GCGE estimates that in the U.S. and Canada, over 600 MW could be generated from capturing waste heat from ICE gas compressor engines alone and does not include gas turbine compressors.  That is equivalent to powering over 500,000 homes per year.

GCGE is using the engine cooling jacket water waste heat from a Caterpillar 399 compressor owned by Houston’s Valerus Compression to generate 18-24 kWh of electricity. This project marks the first commercial ICE application of the Green Machine and is the first commercially viable installation of a small-scale waste heat power generator producing less than 65 kWh. In addition to capturing surplus waste heat for generating emission-free electricity suitable for distributed generation on-site power needs or resale to the local power company. The waste heat removed by the Green Machine also solves a big problem for many ICE’s by reducing the engine temperature by as much as 20F degrees.

Internal combustion engines (ICE’s) are used to drive huge compressors, because natural gas must be compressed at regular intervals to keep it flowing through pipelines. Heat is created by the ICE’s which must be cooled and which goes out the exhaust stack. This is waste heat if it’s not used to generate profits.

Here is where the Green Machine comes in, and the way it works.  The 185F jacket water is redirected from the box cooler (radiator) to the Green Machine. The heat is then reduced and used to pressurize and vaporize the Honeywell R-245 refrigerant which then drives the patented twin screw expander. The expander is belted to an induction generator and the power is delivered to Jackson Electric Co-op. The water is then returned to the engine without the need for additional cooling in the box cooler. This is a major benefit in warmer months because costly additional cooling is not needed, and downtime is reduced by eliminating overheating of the ICE.  The Green Machine has logged more than 4600 hours of operation to date at this site which sees temperatures over 100F degrees in the summer.

Read More….”

Electrical power generation technology that has been in use in other industries is now making its debut in the oil and gas arena.

Judy Murray, Editor

May 26, 2009

The Green Machine will show that it is possible to generate emission-free electricity from the hot water produced by gas wells that is typically a waste byproduct of natural gas production.  Technology newly introduced to the oil and gas industry has the potential to not only reduce emissions, but to generate electricity.

Gulf Coast Green Energy (GCGE), which offers what it calls “earth-friendly solutions for affordable clean energy” uses ElectraTherm waste heat generators to capture engine emissions and convert them to electricity.

The technology GCGE is applying to the oil and gas industry was developed by ElectraTherm, which manufactures the equipment and holds the development rights for the equipment. “ElectraTherm purchased the development rights from City University in London,” explained Loy Sneary, GCGE president and CEO.

Loy’s company was the first to sign up with ElectraTherm and has been actively working to get the technology into the mainstream. “We are far beyond the R&D phase,” Loy said. “Our equipment has been vetted by TCEQ (Texas Commission on Environmental Quality). We’re out of the proof-of-concept stage and are into the commercialization stage.”

One of GCGE’s most recent steps along the road to commercialization has been to secure funding from the Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA) on two projects that aim to help reduce the environmental impact of oil and gas drilling.

According to Loy, the equipment GCGE distributes, installs, and services, works in many arenas of industrial waste heat, which he refers to as “recoverable heat” because, he explained, “Once we recover it, we are generating valuable emission-free electricity with it.”

GCGE has been working with several natural gas pipeline compressor companies that are attracted to being able to add to their bottom line by generating electricity with the added advantage of cooling the engine thus reducing the need for engine cooling equipment. Loy said.

Now, the company is hoping to move into the oil and gas industry, an area where GCGE had little exposure before being selected for funding by RPSEA.

GCGE has been working for some time with the geothermal lab at Southern Methodist University (SMU), which is world renowned for geothermal energy research. “SMU vetted our technology and has been very helpful,” Loy said, noting that his company became aware of RPSEA through Maria Richards, SMU geothermal lab coordinator.
“I had no prior exposure to oil and gas companies,” Loy said. Through RPSEA, Loy gained not only exposure to the industry, but a new perspective on operating companies. “It was refreshing to discover we’ve got leaders in the oil and gas industry that are committed to conducting environmentally responsible activities with their technologies.”

The first of the two projects GCGE will be involved in is titled “Electrical Power Generation from Produced Water: Field Demonstration of Ways to Reduce Operating Costs of Small Producers.” The company will conduct a three-year demonstration project that generates electricity by capturing heat from water used in oil drilling to reduce the amount of energy needed without burning additional fossil fuels. In the process, GCGE will show how small oil drilling operations can cut costs and carbon dioxide emissions while increasing access to previously hard-to-produce oil resources,

“This technology will not only reduce emissions by producing ‘green’ electricity onsite that can be used in drilling operations, but will also reduce costs to small oil producers, making them more competitive in the marketplace,” Sneary said. “It will successfully demonstrate how to generate emission-free electricity from the hot water produced by gas wells that is typically a waste byproduct of natural gas production.”

RPSEA, along with GCGE and Denbury Resources, will fund the project as part of the 2008 Small Producer Program, which focuses on the challenges faced by small oil and gas producers.

The second project GCGE is involved in, the Environmentally Friendly Drilling Systems (EFDS) program, is one of nine projects selected out of 69 for funding by RPSEA’s 2008 Unconventional Resources Program, which supports projects that help meet US energy demands, create jobs, and lower costs to the consumers.

“The EFDS is part of an effort to identify, develop, and demonstrate cost-effective technologies that reduce environmental threats and could allow operations in environmentally sensitive areas that are currently off limits,” Sneary explained.

The plan is for GCGE to connect its “Green Machine” to the huge internal combustion engines on a drilling platform to capture exhaust heat and from the water jacket to generate electricity. “That capability is really attractive because we can generate up to 4 MW of additional power for offshore rigs and 400 kW for onshore rigs.” Sneary said.

Sneary is pleased, he said, with the attention GCGE’s technology is getting today from the oil and gas industry, attributing some of the recent interest to the current economic situation, which has created idle time for E&P companies that are not carrying out as much exploration activity as they did when the oil price was above US $100/bbl. “The economic climate is forcing companies to look at long-term opportunities through strategic growth, and they are recognizing that they can diversify without going very far outside the familiar,” he explained. “With 30-year equipment like this that pays out in three years or less, it is easy to see how much positive impact this can have on the bottom line.”

Both of the projects GCGE is involved in aim to demonstrate that electricity can be generated efficiently with waste heat generators. In the ‘small producer’ project, GCGE will use hot geo-fluids to generate electricity for the first time in the field even though the company has applied this equipment in other commercial capacities. “I think that is what was attractive to the RPSEA board,” Sneary said.

If the technology GCGE is introducing lives up to expectations, it has the potential to make a significant impact in the industry, and its success will encourage future collaboration.

“We’re excited about being a part of both of these projects where universities, environmental groups, and industry are working together to develop environmentally friendly solutions,” Sneary said.