Optimal sizing and techno-economic analysis of a renewable power system for a remote oil well

Abstract

There is a growing interest in the deployment of off-grid renewable energy, especially for remote oil and gas facilities. This work is a novel attempt to optimally size a renewable energy system to power artificial lift for an oil well. It proposes a low-cost alternative to abandonment and decommissioning of old wells. Sucker-rod pump artificial lift simulators (QRodTM and PROSPERTM) are deployed to estimate the energy requirement of a well, with both intermittent and continuous pumping considerations. Simulation and optimization are performed using HOMER optimizerTM, which produces different system configurations and presents the possible configurations in order of increasing system costs. Based on economic and technical merits, continuous pumping using a hybrid renewable energy system consisting of a solar, wind and battery storage is chosen as the most feasible solution with 0 kWh/yr of unmet load, a capacity storage of 0.56 kWh/yr, net present cost of $ 145,150.50, levelized cost of energy of $ 0.51/kWh and an operating cost of $3,056.04/yr. The optimal configuration is finally examined to determine its sensitivity to variation in daily solar radiation and average wind speed. It is demonstrated to be the most preferred system design, even at the least daily average solar radiation.

Keywords

• artificial lift design
• sucker-rod pump
• renewable energy
• optimization
• hybrid power system