Following PIL associate Dr Xuesong Zheng’s presentation at the Gas Processors Association (GPA) Europe Spring Conference 2015 in Hamburg earlier this year, PIL was invited to present at the GPA Europe AGM & Technical Meeting, held in London on 26th November 2015.
The paper, entitled “Energy Optimisation in Natural Gas Processing Plants”, describes PIL’s systematic procedure for energy optimisation in natural gas processing plants using its novel software platforms, i-Heat™ and i-Steam™.
i-Heat™ is a state-of-the-art software tool for the design, evaluation and optimisation of heat recovery systems in industrial processes. The software tool considers realistic industrial constraints leading to the generation of solutions that are both practical and feasible, as well as ensuring the designs obtained are optimal. i-Steam™ is a novel software platform to model, simulate and optimise modern steam and power systems. i-Steam™ considers a more comprehensive modelling of the overall utility systems providing additional degrees of freedom for optimisation.
Natural gas processing plants require a series of process units to remove contaminants. These units have different process heating and cooling demands. Appropriate matching of the heating and cooling requirements in Heat Exchanger Networks (HENs) leads to significant operating cost reductions. Excessive heat from process units can be recovered by producing steam for the utility system, which may be used for satisfying heating requirements of other units or for power generation.
In the paper, an industrial case study is presented to illustrate the benefits of performance optimisation of the individual processes and the steam system simultaneously by using PIL’s systematic procedures. Energy saving projects were identified by i-Heat™ in individual process units through enhanced heat recovery. The influence and impact of the individual energy saving projects on the utility system was evaluated effectively with an integrated steam model in i-Steam™. Further degrees of freedom became unlocked and were exploited. Such a systematic and integrated energy optimisation approach significantly reduced utility consumption and improved the overall economics of the natural processing plant.
For a copy of the abstract please click the Downloads tab.
