Research on the Integration of a Natural Gas-Distributed Energy System into the Oilfield Facility in China

Abstract

The oilfield facility provides a sufficient supply of self-produced natural gas and has an obvious price advantage. However, China’s oilfield facilities are supplied with electricity and heat from the external grid and natural gas boilers separately. Therefore, in this study, a natural gas distributed energy saving system is built in the oilfield facility, which can supply electricity and heating simultaneously. An oilfield facility in Changchun, China, is used as the case study in this research to design a natural gas-distributed energy system. The operational carbon emissions and the operating cost are used as evaluation criteria. Three energy supply methods of the natural gas-distributed energy system are studied. Meanwhile, the impacts of China’s distributed energy policy are also quantified to determine the capacity of the power generation units. The results reveal that under the optimized following the heating load method (FHL-restricted), where the self-electricity consumption ratio of the gas engine is kept at 50%, the natural gas-distributed energy systems can meet policy requirements while achieving optimal carbon emission reductions and minimizing operating costs. The newly built system can simultaneously achieve the goals of energy saving, carbon emission reduction, and energy cost mitigation.