In 2011, ElectraTherm’s Green Machine completed its six-month demonstration to generate additional power from the hot water that oil and gas producers consider a nuisance. This is the first small-scale (<200kWe) application to generate fuel-free, emission free power at an oil well. The report is now available on the ElectraTherm website (PDF).
The demonstration developed from a grant by the Department of Energy’s Research Partnership to Secure Energy for America (RPSEA). The effort funded the demonstration of ElectraTherm’s waste heat generator that uses produced water to create “green” electricity usable onsite for field operations or for export to the grid. The demonstration was implemented by ElectraTherm’s Gulf Coast distributor, Gulf Coast Green Energy, in partnership with ElectraTherm, Denbury Resources, Inc., and other key partners.
The six month demonstration successfully concluded in November with 1,136 total runtime hours, and provided excellent insight for future installations. ElectraTherm overcame previous industry discouragement over generating electricity from co-produced fluids by eliminating individual hurdles, each detailed in the report. By realizing and overcoming each challenge during the six months of operation, ElectraTherm, our partners and the US Department of Energy are recognizing the ample potential for utilizing the tens of thousands of similar wells that co-produce hot liquid during oil and gas production. It is currently not recognized or ignored that low temperature co-produced fluids can be the fuel for emission free power production at wellheads all across the country.
ElectraTherm is currently using this demonstration data for a project with the Department of Energy at a geothermal well in Nevada. The project, located at Florida Canyon mine outside Winnemucca, Nev., has similar challenges with geothermal brine. ElectraTherm will take the experience at Laurel to further progress this and future geothermal projects.
Visit ElectraTherm’s website at www.electratherm.com to read the report in full.
