Energy, Life Cycle, and Energy Cost Analysis from Waste Heat Recovery of Crude Oil Wells using Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC)
Keywords:
Power generation system; Waste heat recovery; Organic Rankine cycle (ORC); Life cycle assessment (LCA); Crude oil wellsAbstract
This research presents a power generation system for waste heat recovery from crude oil wells. The system employed a 10-kWe organic Rankine cycle (ORC) with an R-245fa refrigerant as the working fluid and an air-cooled system. A geofluid temperature range of 84.00 – 101.50 °C and a mass flow rate of 2.91 L/s were used to generate power from the ORC system. Test results revealed a net power output of 4.95 kWe and a system efficiency of 3.20% from the heat-to-power system. The life cycle assessment (LCA) revealed highly significant midpoint effects under human toxicity of 9.06E+04 kg 1,4-DB eq and climate change of 2.49E+05 kg CO2 eq.
The endpoint impact values encompassed a human health of 8.35E-02 DALY, an ecosystem quality of 2.27E-02 Species·y, and natural resources of 1.71E+03 USD.
The LCA single score was approximately 0.00047 Pt. All of these impacts were associated with the use of copper and steel. The economic analysis indicates
a levelized energy cost of 0.064 USD/kWh under an investment cost of 1,100,000 Baht.
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