Abstract
The oil and gas industry is under increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of its energy-intensive oil- and gas-processing operations through improved energy use and waste-heat recovery. This paper explores the use of waste-heat-powered absorption cooling to boost the efficiency of natural-gas (NG) processing, enhance hydrocarbon recovery, and reduce utility cost in an NG plant. A thermodynamic analysis of a gas turbine waste-heat-powered double-effect water/lithium bromide (H2O/LiBr) absorption chiller in an integrated NG plant is presented. It is found that waste heat recovered from turbine exhaust gases could be used to provide enhanced process cooling capacity to the NG plant through absorption cooling. The results suggest that a double-effect LiBr absorption chiller utilizing 34.6 MW of gas-turbine exhaust heat could provide 45 MW of cooling at 5°C. This could save approximately 9 MW of electric energy required by a typical compression chiller, while providing an equivalent amount of cooling. The associated annual savings are estimated to be approximately USD 7.8 million/yr, with a payback period of 2 years.
| Original language | British English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 232-238 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | SPE Projects, Facilities and Construction |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2011 |
