Investigation of Demonstration Site and Commercialization Potential of New and Planned Pipelines. Task I

摘要

The US DOE has a program for demonstrating the economic feasibility of using the organic bottoming cycling to save energy in the operation of gas pipelines. The bottoming cycle would recover energy from the exhaust of gas turbines used to drive pipeline compressors and would use the recovered energy as auxiliary input to the compressors. In this study of alternate demonstration sites, new sites located on the Trailblazer, Alaskan and Northern Border Pipelines were considered. Two additional existing sites at Clifton, Kansas and Syracuse, Nebraska were also considered. The studies consisted of a differential economic analyses of first-of-a-kind installations between a gas turbine with bottoming cycle and a larger gas turbine without bottoming cycle. The Clifton site was removed from study early by the pipeline company. However, the economics of the Syracuse site were superior to those of the new sites. The reason for that was that for an existing site only the bottoming cycle apparatus had to be purchased whereas for a new site the gas turbine to be bottomed had to be purchased in addition. Although the Syracuse site appeared to present an attractive investment opportunity and the pipeline company was evaluating the provided study data, the site had to be ruled out because the maintenance costs for the existing gas turbines were becoming excessive. Attention was then turned to the two sites of three studied previously which had the potential of being economically viable for production quantities of bottoming cycle apparatus. The recommendation was made that the demonstration of the bottoming cycle be accomplished at the Burney, California site because it was superior to the Rayne site economically. (ERA citation 06:027320)