Simulation and Modification of The Process at The Gas Compression Station to Reduce Fuel Consumption and Environmental Pollution

Abstract

The environmental laws cause industries to find solutions for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, the study and simulation of a domestic gas compression station by the Aspen-Hysys software has been considered. At this station, the gas turbines are applied to make mechanical energy from a combustible fuel to drive the compressors. Furthermore, the glycol dehydration process is used to absorb water from the natural gas stream. In order to reduce the glycol heater fuel consumption, the heat recovery of the turbine stacks, and restoring the exit glycol vapors, a new design is proposed and simulated. In this design, the heat of the flue gas leaving the turbine is transferred to the rich glycol stream exiting the absorption column. This will lead to a reduction in the daily consumption of sweet gas by 2.5 million cubic feet. The comparison of the simulation results with plant data shows that the proposed process could achieve the temperature requirements of glycol regeneration (198 °C). By restoring the glycol vapors from the regeneration tower to the consumption cycle, it is possible to decrease the Glycol consumption by 188.8 kgmole/h. Finally, by transferring the flue gas from the turbine (after heat exchanging with rich glycol stream) to the safe area outside the gas compression station, it helps to prevent the release of hazardous pollutants and increase the occupational exposure indices. In addition, the cost evaluation shows that the proposed process is capable of saving 24017 million rials per day by consuming 21340 million rials.

Keywords

• heat recovery
• process simulation
• aspen-hysys software
• turbine stack
• glycol dehydration
• reducing fuel consumption