Waste heat from a 1400 Horsepower Waukesha 7042 Reciprocating Engine Provides Distributed Power Generation and Offsets Local Electric Loads
Cessford, Alberta, Canada. ConocoPhillips has installed two ElectraTherm Power+ waste heat-to-power generators at their Cessford gas compression station. The two Power+ 4400s, ElectraTherm’s ORC generators, produce electrical output up to 65kWe each and run in parallel off the waste heat from a Waukesha 7042 natural gas engine. The waste heat generates approximately 90kWe gross of fuel-free, emission free electricity at the site. The Power+ GeneratorsTM were installed in the first quarter of 2014 and have each exceeded 3,000 hours of run time to date. They are remotely monitored from ElectraTherm in Reno 1,200 miles away. These Power+ GeneratorsTM are the first commercial units that are CRN and CSA approved for Canadian deployments.
Exhaust heat from the natural gas engine is converted to hot water and added to the jacket water heat through an engine glycol cooling loop combined with an Aprovis exhaust gas heat exchanger. The waste heat enters each Power+ GeneratorTM at 230°F (110°C) and 180 GPM (11 l/s), where it’s converted into usable onsite power. This specific site was retrofitted into an existing compressor using an engine driven radiator/gas cooling system.
Future deployments of the ORC system will be configured to replace the existing radiator/gas cooling system with the Power+ GeneratorTM and its dedicated electrical cooling system. This frees up engine horsepower for added compression and provides power for local loads while eliminating the CapX of a conventional engine radiator. “The ORC system simply becomes a power producing radiator with a payback”, said Loy Sneary, Gulf Coast Green Energy’s CEO. “We have been working with several O&G companies that are considering installing Power+ GeneratorsTM for energy efficiency and optimization. Now that CP has stepped up with ElectraTherm to install these units, we believe other O&G companies will do the same”.
The ElectraTherm Power+ GeneratorTM generates fuel-free, emission-free power from low temperature waste heat on applications including internal combustion engines, biomass, geothermal/co-produced fluids and solar thermal. The ElectraTherm Power+ fleet has accrued more than 260,000 hours (30 years+) of run time to date.
