Design and optimization of a power hub for Brazilian off-shore oil production units
Abstract
A worldwide trend to reduce greenhouse gases emissions has encouraged researchers to study more efficient solutions in diverse sectors, including Oil and Gas Industry. Most of offshore units are energized by redundant equipment operating at low loads, turning their energy consumption inefficient and increasing environmental impact. This work aims at identifying the optimal design of a gas and steam turbine combined cycle tailored for offshore oil production applications. The Brazilian pre-salt basin is taken as a case study to improve operational efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions of floating oil production units. The idea is to concentrate the power supply to a floating power plant, composed of combined cycle power blocks. A model is developed, integrating the design of the gas turbine, heat recovery steam generators (single pressure and double pressure), steam turbine and condenser. Genetic algorithms are applied in two optimization approaches, single-objective and multi-objective. Three parameters are evaluated: equipment purchase cost, thermal efficiency and total weight. The results of the multi-objective optimization indicate that dual-pressure arrangement steam cycles, featuring 3 gas turbines, 1 HRSG and 1 steam cycle, could be an attractive design solution for power hubs. This arrangement has a low cost and weight, while the thermal efficiency is maintained at a reasonable high level (around 53.2 %). Moreover, the results indicate that by introducing a power hub, the CO2 emissions may be reduced by 18.7 % to 27.2 % compared with a conventional FPSO design.
Info
Conference Paper, 2018
UN SDG Classification
DK Main Research Area
Science/Technology
