LAKELAND - New waste-heat recovery technology means 80 per cent of the existing power needs for Strathcona Resources’ Orion thermal oil facility near Cold Lake will be carbon-free.
The approximately $63 million project has been under construction for the past 18 months and is expected to come online on Canada Day. Approximately $12 million was funded by the federal government through the Low Carbon Economy Fund.
“It’s like a giant air-conditioner,” said Kim Chiu, the president of SCR Cold Lake.
Chiu explained that in thermal operations, steam is pumped down to melt the oil, which is then collected along with condensed water and brought back to the surface at a temperature higher than 200 degrees Celsius.
“Obviously, when you have a fluid that's coming out of the ground at 200 degrees Celsius, we try to capture as much of that heat as we possibly can, and for the most part, thermal plants are really good at capturing it, but there's still what we call low grade heat . . . generally, in the form of our produced gasses and vapors,” said Chiu.
He said those high temperature produced gases will now run through an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) system, which uses the heat to spin the turbines and produce electricity, on average about 16 megawatts per hour.
“It’s used in geothermal applications all around the world. So, it's a very known and proven technology. Having said that, it's the first that we are aware of for any anyone using it within the oil and gas space itself. So, we are first in that regard,” said Chiu.
According to Chiu, the process is much more efficient during the winter when the ambient air temperature is lower, but over the 30+ year life of the project it will save 13 million gigajoules of energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 740,000 tonnes.
On an annual basis, the greenhouse gas emission and energy savings are directly linked to the production rates coming out of Orion.
“Long-term forecasts see relatively steady productions for decades. It will ebb and flow just because by nature of oil production wells, you do see them go up and down. But you can draw a relatively flat line from year to year,” said Chiu.
