Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) Systems for Oil & Gas - Oil, Gas & Refineries
Turboden Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) units enable power production (up to 20 MW per single turbine) by recovering excess waste heat from the exhausts of gas turbines or reciprocating engines, or from the hot streams typical in Oil & Gas industry. ORC turbogenerators provide a solution to improving the efficiency of typical Oil & Gas processes, by allowing users to reduce their environmental footprint through converting waste, high-to-low grade heat, into mechanical/electric power.
Applications Details
Associated Petroleum Gas (APG) can often be found at Oil & Gas extraction sites. When the chemical composition of APG is poor and therefore its exploitation is problematic with traditional technologies, it is typically burned via torches. In such cases, the flare gas is undoubtedly wasted. ORC is a viable technology that can use the energy content of flare gas to produce electric power. The heat recovery configuration involves a boiler fueled by flare gas that heats up a thermal vector fluid, typically thermal oil. The thermal oil feeds the ORC unit, which then produces electricity and thermal power at low temperature (in case of a CHP unit).
PROCESS HOT STREAMS
Both the upstream and the downstream sectors are characterized by the presence of heat sources at medium-to-low temperature. On the one hand, exhausted extraction wells are often full of hot water. On the other hand, oil refining processes take place at high temperatures and the products (diesel, kerosene, etc.) exit the process at temperatures between 150°C and 250°C and must be cooled down before storage. In both cases, an ORC with the proper working fluid can exploit these low enthalpy sources to produce useful power.