October 2011, Volume 2, No.

5 International Journal of Chemical and Environmental Engineering

A Feasibility Study of Employing an Internal Combustion Engine and a Turbo-expander in a CGS

Hasan Eftekhari a,b, Kourosh Akhlaghib, Mahmood Farzaneh-Gordc, Mohsen Khatibc
b c

National Iranian Gas Company, South Khorasan Gas Company, Iran The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Shahrood University of Technology, Shahrood, Iran a Corresponding Author Email: eftekhari@nigc.ir Abstract Most of the natural gas reaches its end users through transmission and distribution pipelines. Transmission pipelines operate at high pressures. In a place of consumption or at passing into a lower pressure pipeline the pressure of the gas must be reduced. This pressure reduction takes place in places which called City Gate Stations (CGS). In CGSs the pressure must be reduced from 5-7 MPa to 1.5-2.0 MPa (usually to 1.7 MPa) into high pressure intrastate pipeline, then to approximately 0.3 MPa into medium pressure intrastate pipeline. In this study, based on a comprehensive program, Inlet and outlet properties of natural gas flow and daily flow rate through a typical CGS were measured and recorded for a whole year. Based on this data recording, the amount of electricity which can be produced from natural gas pressure has been calculated when utilizing a turbo-expander. The amount of obtainable work could be increased significantly through the use of a CHP system. The idea is to utilize an additional prime mover as a heat source while simultaneously generating additional work along a turbo expander. The additional prime mover was chosen to be an internal combustion engine driving an additional generator. Some Internal combustion engines have been added to preheat the natural gas as well as generating electricity. Preheating the gas rise the amount of electricity generation as well as preventing hydrate forming in natural gas stream. The amount of electricity generation for both systems have been calculated and compared. The economics of such a system are very complex, and there are many variables that must be considered. Some of the major considerations are total installed cost, the load factor or capacity factor, the value of the electricity, and, where preheat is required, the cost differential between the electricity produced and the fuel used. Any design must make assumptions about these variables and then the final design must be a series of compromises, which will yield the optimum combination. The result shows that a considerable amount of energy can be produced in a CGS. The result also showed that if a gas turbine utilized along to the turbo-expander, the amount of electrical energy can be doubled comparing when only a turbo-expander is installed. Keywords: Gas Pressure Station, Turbo Expander, Internal Combustion Engine, Cogeneration

1. Introduction
The increasing scarcity of energy resources, global warming and blackouts resulting from weather conditions have stimulated the search for more efficient methods of energy conservation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and ensuring power supplies. Meanwhile, natural gas pressure is one of the best sources ofobtainable exergy potentially, which can be used to provide heat and power as electrical or the other shapes of energy such as heat. Natural gas is considered as an environmentally friendly clean fuel, offering important environmental benefits when compared to other fossil fuels. The superior environmental qualities over coal or crude oil are that emissions of sulfur dioxide are negligible or that the levels of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide emissions are lower. This helps to reduce problems of acid rain, ozone layer, or greenhouse gases. Natural gas is also a very safe source of energy when transported, stored, and used. Natural gas flow through the high pressure pipelines contains a valuable pressure exergy (available energy).

Transmission pipelines operate at high pressures (57 MPa). In CGSs the pressure must be reduced from 5-7 MPa to 1.5-2.0 MPa (usually to 1.7 MPa) into high pressure intrastate pipeline, then to approximately 0.3 MPa into medium pressure intrastate pipeline. Figure 1 shows the schematic diagram of a typical pressure reduction stations. The CGSs essentially performs a safety function: the limitation of the pressure in the downstream system to a safe value. But this configuration is not useful to employ the potential exergy of the high pressure flowing natural gas. So there is no chance to produce heat and power in form of electricity namely.

Figure 1: Process flow sheet diagram of a usual CGS

A Feasibility Study of Employing an Internal Combustion Engine and a Turbo-expander in a CGS

Much research has been carried out to study the use of natural gas pressure exergy, focusing on the pressure drop stations. One example is the work of Bisio [1].He examined systems to use this exergy, including a mechanical system to compress air.In a limited number of cases pressurereduction is achieved using a turboexpander. This method has the added bonus of powergeneration.The first turbo expander application for natural gas processing wasaccomplished using Rotoflow technology in Texas in the early 1960s.It dramatically demonstrated how efficiently the expansion turbinecould condense heavier components of the gas stream, while at thesame time providing power to re-compress the leaner gas.Turbo-expanders are mainly used in industry to create very low temperature natural gas streams in ethane extraction plants, or for LNG production. Because work is extracted from the expanding high pressure gas, the expansion process closely follows an isentropic process. Greeffet al. [2] has studied the integration of turboexpanders into various high-pressure exothermic chemical-synthesis processes. They demonstrated successful integration of a turbo-expander with meaningful energy savings. Hinderinket al. [3] proposed a method for calculating the absolute exergy of multi-component liquid, vapour or two-phase flows. This method enabled the clear division of the total exergy of a material stream into three terms, thus the exergy change of mixing was calculated separately from the chemical and the physical exergy. Exergies were calculated as extensive stream properties through the use of some external subroutines. Poivill [4] has studied the use of turbo-expanders in natural gas pressure-drop stations with commercial software, AspenTechs HYSYS process simulator. He investigated the effects of turbo-expander isentropic efficiency on temperature reduction and power generation. Farzaneh and Magrebi [5] studied exergy destruction in Irans natural gas fields. They concluded that one could generate 4,200 MW of electricity from this pressure exergy. Farzanehet al. [6] studied methods of using the pressure exergy of natural gas in the Bandar Abbas (Iran) refinery pressure-drop station. They investigated the effect of gas pre-heating on the amount of electricity generation. They have also proposed some thermodynamics systems to produce and use refrigeration. Farzaneh et al. [7] investigated the amount of energy destruction in Iran's pipeline network. Based on a comprehensive program, they concluded that one can generate 109.68 kjkg-1 of natural gas flow through the network. C.R.Howard [8], has been investigated the performance of a hybrid turbo expander and fuel cell (HTEFC) system for power recovery at natural gas pressure reduction stations. Simulations were created to predict the performance of various system configurations. In this study, a comprehensive program has been carried out to record and measure natural gas properties

and flow rates at Mashhad west CGS for a year. Based on this data, the amount of energy which could be generated by utilizing a combined heat and power system was calculated. The system consists of a preheat section, a turbo expander and additional prime movers. The additional prime moverwas selected to be an internal combustion engine (ICE). Some Internal combustion engines have been added to preheat the natural gas as well as generating electricity. Preheating the gas rise the amount of electricity generation as well as preventing hydrate forming in natural gas stream. The amount of electricity generation for both systems have been calculated and compared. The economics of such a system are very complex, and there are many variables that must be considered. Some of the major considerations are total installed cost, the load factor or capacity factor, the value of the electricity, and, where preheat is required, the cost differential between the electricity produced and the fuel used. Any design must make assumptions about these variables and then the final design must be a series of compromises, which will yield the optimum combination.

2. Power generation in a CGS with a Combined Heat and Power System

In theory, it is possible to utilize a system to generate electricity and refrigeration through the natural pressure drop process. In this study, a combined heat power system has been proposed to capture this energy. The system consists of a turbo expander as a main and an internal combustion engine (ICE) as additional prime mover. Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a typical CGS with a CHP system. The amount of obtainable work could be increased significantly through the use of a Combined Heat and Power (CHP) system. The idea is to utilize an additional prime mover as a heat source while simultaneously generating additional work along a turbo expander. The additional prime mover was chosen to be a natural gas-powered ICE driving an additional generator. The ICEs are available in different size and easily could be combined to address seasonal change in the CGSs. In the CHP system, the heat lost from the ICE is utilized to preheat the natural gas stream. This combination is more economical than just burning gas to preheat the natural gas. In case of installing a turbo expander in a CGS, the inlet natural gas is needed to be heated up more than a simple throttling valve system. The temperature after the heater is calculated based on gas temperature after the expander or throttle valve, by means of try and see process. Certainly the outlet gas temperature is assumed to be greater than 5C to ensure that no hydration is happened. The average natural gas ICE is between 30% to 40% efficient in converting the energy content of the natural gas into electricity. The majority of the other 70% to 60% is waste heat, and the majority of this waste heat can be

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A Feasibility Study of Employing an Internal Combustion Engine and a Turbo-expander in a CGS

used to preheat the natural gas. This is a very effective CHP, where nearly all the heat is additionally converted into electricity via turbo expander power generation. The ICE is widely available in different sizes. The turbo expander is unable to provide power generation and pressure reduction in all possible flow situations. It is therefore necessary for the system to have conventional expansion valves installed in parallel with the turbo expander to ensure consistent and safe pressure reduction.Flow is controlled between the turbo expander and valves in order to maximize power production and ensure accurate pressure control.

flow rate varies from design flow was used to determine the efficiency for each flowcondition. This relationship is shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Turbo expander efficiency curve [9].

Figure 2: A schematic diagram of a CGS with a CHP system

The turbo expander was simulated as an adiabatic expansion of gas with work extracted from thecontrol volume. Irreversibilities in the process were included as an isentropic efficiency. This is the ratio of the actual work done by the system to the amount of work that is theoreticallypossible without irreversibilities. Enthalpies for known states were found as well as entropy andenthalpy for the ideal isentropic expansion. These were combined with the isentropic efficiency inorder to determine the actual outlet enthalpy. The power output of the turbo expander was thencalculated using the mass flow and enthalpy change and the outlet temperature was found usingthe outlet enthalpy and pressure. The following expressions were used in EES in order tocalculate these values.

For the purposes of this model, design efficiency, design flow, maximum flow and minimumflow were varied in order to represent different turbo expander configurations. Maximum andminimum flows for the turbo expander were used to allocate gas flow to the turbo expander andexpansion valves. Excess flow from the turbo expander at maximum flow was diverted toexpansion valve components in the model. Flow rates below minimum for the turbo expanderwere completely diverted to the expansion valves. The mechanical power output from the turbo expander component of thesimulation was multiplied by the gearbox and generator efficiencies to calculate the electricalpower output of the turbo expander. Total electrical power output from the entire system wasfound using the following expression.

Where is the total electric power of the system in kW, is the mechanical power of the turbo expander in kW, and are the mechanical efficiencies of the gearbox and generator respectively, is the electric power supplied by the internal combustion engine and finally is the number of engines that must be in the circuit.

3. Results and Discussion

Where h1 and h2 are the enthalpies at the inlet and outlet of the turbo expander, is the mechanical power of the turbo expander in kW, is the mass flow rate through the turbo expander The isentropic efficiency of the turbo expander was approximated based on the gas flow rate.Efficiency curves for this simulation were based on the efficiency relationship of a constant speedturbo expander with respect to flow given in [9]. A second order approximation for efficiency curvesas
3.1- Measured value of natural gas properties flowing through the CGSs

Figure 4 shows the daily Inlet and outlet gas pressures of the station. Thisstation exhibited seasonal inlet pressure drops, due to pipeline network design and high natural gas demand during the winter. But the outlet pressure remains nearly constant in all the days.

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A Feasibility Study of Employing an Internal Combustion Engine and a Turbo-expander in a CGS

demand in the other months. So the power production will be greater in these months compared with the other times.

Figure 4: Gas inlet and outlet pressures of the Mashhad west CGS.

Figure 5, shows the daily gas inlet temperature to the gas station in a year. It can be seen that this parameter exhibited severe seasonal changes in a year.

Figure 7: Heat requirement of the system

Fig.8 shows that, nearly in all days, the majority of the heat requirement is obtained with the internal combustion engine and the heater is off all days approximately.

Figure 5: Gas Inlet temperature of the Mashhad west CGS.

Figure 6, shows daily mass flow rates. As it can be seen, the largest flow occurred during December at the West (Mashhad) CGS. This is due to cold weather and high demand for space heating. It can also be seen that winter natural gas demand is about three times larger than summer demand in all CGSs.

Figure 8: Daily Fuel Consumption Rate of Single Turbo expander and Heater System

Figure 9 shows the power production of the single turbo expander and ICE system, where the number of generator sets will be changed in different days due to variations of conditions and requirements.

Figure 6: Daily mass flow rate of the Mashhad west CGS.

3.2- Calculation of output work

The calculation procedure starts by computing enthalpies of natural gas stream at inlet, preheated and outlets positions. This is done by knowing inlet, preheated, outlet pressures and temperatures and help of exergetic efficiency. Figure 7 shows the heat requirement of the system for various days of the year. It is obvious that the heat demand in December and January is greater than the heat

Total power production ranges from 3000 to 14000 kW when the single turbo expander and some internal combustion engines are operational.Variations in flow rates have a direct effect on power production. As flow rates vary seasonally, the power production from the turbo expander will also vary. The output electrical power of the expander is nearly a constant magnitude compared with the power production of the ICEs.

Figure 9: Daily Power Output of Single Turbo Expander and some ICEs System

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A Feasibility Study of Employing an Internal Combustion Engine and a Turbo-expander in a CGS

Electrical efficiency of the internal combustion engine is dependent to the load percent where engine is working on it. Figure 10 shows this variation with respect to the load percent of genset based on information of [10]. Also the output heat that can be obtained using the generator sets is dependent to the input fuel flow rate and the load percentage of the genset. These variations are used in the modeling on the basis of Ref.10.

Figure 11: number of working generator sets, a) total number of working engines and b) number of full load engines.

Figure 10: variation of electrical efficiency of the ICE versus load percent

3.3- Number of Internal combustion engines

It should be noted that the number of generator sets are different for various days of year, where the maximum magnitude is 3 for winter. The engines work at different load percent due to changes of conditions and input parameters. So the load percentage of the generator sets is calculated for various days. Figure 11 shows the total number of internal combustion engines that are in the circuit in a day. Also the number of full load is obvious in this figure.

Figure 12: The load percentage of the part load working engine

The part load working engine has different load percent per day. Figure.12 shows this clearly.

4. Feasibility Study
The cost analysis is carried out for the combined inlet air coolingsystem and turbo-expander installation.The cost analysis of the combined system is based on the costbenefit analysis. In this method the additional revenues are calculatedas a result of additional electricity production in MWh. Thenet electricity production is around 22,602 MWh for turbo-expanderand additional production is around 30,707 MWh for the internal combustion engines in a year. The net cash flow of this electricity production is calculatedto be 2,385,000USDbased on the current electricity price inIran which is 6 Cents/kW h. Table 1shows the detailed cost analysisfor the combined system. A payback period analysis wasalso carried out on these simulation results. There are two definitions for payback ratio, as given below: Simple payback ratio (SPB) Discounted payback ratio (DPB) Where are calculated as follow:

Where Ft is the net flow cash in period t. in

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A Feasibility Study of Employing an Internal Combustion Engine and a Turbo-expander in a CGS

preliminary assessments, Ft is often considered constant (i.e. it does not change with t): Ft=F. Then Eq.4 leads to:

Which, of course, gives a positive value of SPB, if F > 0; otherwise the investment results in a loss. Also by assuming Ft=F, the DPB is calculated as follow:

There are investments which have a reasonable simple payback period, but their discounted payback period shows that the investment cost will never be recovered.
Table 1: The cost analysis of the combined system Total capital cost for turbo-expander purchasing (Qty=1) Total capital cost for generator sets purchasing (Qty=3) Annual O&M costs per year Direct investments (i.e. installation, piping , instrument, ) Indirect investments(i.e. engineering and supervision, ) Annual fuel consumption costs Annual net cash flow Cost of electricity per kWh Simple payback ratio(SPB) Discounted payback ratio(DPB) 2,100,000 USD 1,437,416 USD 125,682 USD 5,341,000 USD 942,617 USD 262,472 USD 2,385,000 USD 0.06 Cents/kWhr 2.927 years 3.243 years

amount of electricity generation for both systems have been calculated and compared. The isentropic efficiency of the turbo expander was approximated based on the gas flow rate.Efficiency curves for this simulation were based on the efficiency relationship of a constant speedturbo expander with respect to flow given in [9]. The results show that this configuration is capable to provide nearly 13MW electrical power in the coolest day of the year. The expander is working in all the year approximately and so we can obtain minimum 1.8MW in a hot day of the year. The numbers of generator sets are different for various days of year, where the maximum magnitude is 3 for winter. The engines work at different load percent due to changes of conditions and input parameters. So the load percentage of the generator sets is calculated for various days. A feasibility analysis has been performed to calculate the payback ratio of this proposed configuration. The results show that the discounted payback ratio is nearly 3.2 years. So this unveiled the cost effectiveness of the proposed system.

6. List of symbols
DPB Discounted payback ratio (year) Ft, F Net cash flow per year (USD) F0 Investment costs (USD) h1 Inlet enthalpies of turbo-expander (kJ/kg) h2 Outlet enthalpies of turbo-expander (kJ/kg) ICE Internal combustion engine Mass flow rate through turbo expander n Number of engines Pelectrical Total produced electrical power (kW) PICE electrical power of internal combustion engine SPB Simple payback ratio (year) Mechanical power of turbo expander (kW)

Based on these values, the discounted paybackperiod (DPB) has been calculated to be around 3.2 years. This unveiledthe cost effectiveness of the proposed system.

5. Conclusion
This work resulted in valuable insights into the design of hybrid turbo expander and internal combustion engine for power recovery and natural gas pressure reduction. It also led to the identification ofmany areas for future work on the topic.A comprehensive program has been carried out to record and measure natural gas properties and flow rates at Mashhad west CGS for a year. A comprehensive program has been carried out to record and measure natural gas properties and flow rates at Mashhad west CGS for a year. Based on this data, the amount of energy which could be generated by utilizing a combined heat and power system was calculated. The system consists of a preheat section, a turbo expander and additional prime movers. The additional prime moverwas selected to be an internal combustion engine (ICE). Some Internal combustion engines have been added to preheat the natural gas as well as generating electricity. Preheating the gas rise the amount of electricity generation as well as preventing hydrate forming in natural gas stream. The

Greek symbols
Turbo expander efficiency Gearbox efficiency Generator efficiency REFERENCES
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