July 2004

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Direct heat recovery of a cogeneration unit saves utilities and reduces emissions
Other benefits include improved refinery onstream time and reduced heater fouling/ coking

J. SENTJENS and E. GOUDAPPEL, Jacobs Consultancy Nederland B.V., Leiden, The Netherlands
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Refineries are faced with drivers pushing their performance to less emissions and higher utility efficiency. Direct heat recovery of a
cogeneration unit, by means of a heat recovery unit (HRU), maximizes the integration potential, resulting in reduced emissions and
utility savings. Compared to repowering fired heaters or traditional cogeneration, HRU/HRSG cogeneration saves additional energy,
with appropriate emissions reduction, and an improved energy intensity index. Other benefits include improving the refinery's
onstream time, reducing fouling/ coking and possibly debottlenecking the refinery unit.

Table 1 provides an overview that also includes a repowering option.

Table 1. Various crude heating options

A comparison: Conventional fired heater Repowering fired heater HRU/HRSG cogeneration

Energy savings Reference Approx. 510% Approx. 1020%

Upstream time Reference No improvement Improved

Capacity increase Reference No improvement* Possible**

* Capacity can even decrease due to limited gas flow through the fired heater.
** A capacity increase is possible if the fired heater represents the bottleneck of the refinery unit.

HRU/HRSG cogeneration. In traditional cogeneration, heat is recovered into a heat recovery steam generator (HRSG). However,
opportunities also exist to recover the heat directly into a process in an HRU, provided there is an appropriate temperature match.
Such is the case with most fired heaters in a refinery.
Fig. 1 details such a concept for a crude distiller unit (CDU) of a refinery. In essence, the gas turbine (GT) exhaust provides the heat
required by the crude in an HRU. The remainder of the heat available in the GT exhaust allows for generating steam in an HRSG.
This has the following technical advantages:

An HRU can be placed in parallel or series to the fired

Fig. 1 heater.

Fouling and coking on the heat transfer area are reduced, because the heat transfer is shifted from radiant to convective.
The unit may be debottlenecked if the fired heater is the bottleneck of the unit because additional heat transfer area is
installed.
Onstream time can be improved in a parallel arrangement because redundancy is built into the system.
Aiming for a large fired heater, like a crude heater, allows for economy of scale, which applies to the economics as well as
the energy efficiency.
Onsite steam generation reduces demand on the site's steam boiler.
Onsite power generation reduces required power import, or even allows for power export.

As also can be seen in Fig. 1, an HRU can be placed in two alternate arrangements: parallel or in series to the existing fired heater.

This article focuses on the parallel arrangement because of the operation advantages in upstream time, redundancy and
maintenance. As stated in Table 2, such an arrangement typically has a step-wise approach to the HRU duty with respect to the
required crude duty, i.e., the fired heater duty. An HRU duty of 50% or 100% of the existing fired heater duty is most common in
such a cogeneration scheme.

Table 2. Comparison of HRU in parallel and in series to the fired heater

HRU placed in parallel to the fired heater HRU placed in series to the fired heater

The fired heater and HRU control crude temperature. The fired heater controls crude temperature.

Upstream time improved compared to the conventional Upstream time is similar to the conventional fired heater
fired heater, due to the redundancy. arrangement.

HRU design as critical as the fired heater design. The HRU design is less critical than the fired heater due to lower
mechanical design can be optimized independently from temperatures and less two-phase flow. However, the fired heater
the fired heater design. dictates the mechanical design.

No redesign of the fired heater is required. Fired heater redesign is likely due to changed inlet conditions.

A step-wise approach to the HRU is favorable because of HRU duty is flexible, but limited to the difference between the fired
redundancy and maintenance. heater rated duty and the minimum duty (turndown).

Auxiliary firing is optional for both arrangements and can be considered best for nonnormal operation cases like fired heater trip
or fresh-air firing.

The 100% HRU duty scheme, in effect making the fired heater redundant, represents the maximum integration potential for any
given refinery unit. Such a scheme would typically consist of two parallel 50% HRU duty schemes, thereby maintaining the operation
advantages in upstream time, redundancy and maintenance.

A case study. Based on a 130 kbpd CDU, taken from literature,1 a case study was developed. The base case had a 95 MWth fired
heater, from which 50% duty was shifted to the HRU in a parallel arrangement.

The reference case, the case study's starting point, is depicted in Fig. 2. An average refinery2 of such a size would consume
approximately 45 MWe of power, about 190 tph of steam and around 450 MWth of fuel. For the purpose of this exercise, the
following has been assumed:

Consumption Fuel Eff. Price

Power plant* 45 MWe** Natural gas (NG) 54% 35.00/MWh

Steam boilers 190 tph** Natural gas (NG) 90% 0.124/Nm3
Fired heaters 450 MWth** Heavy fuel oil (HFO) 85% 120.00/ton
Upstream time 95%
100 barg steam 12.68/ton Based on steam boiler operations
34 barg steam 10.85/ton Based on 100 barg steam price minus power gain
4 barg steam 8.03/ton Based on 100 barg steam price minus power gain
* Combined cycle power plant is assumed
** Total utility consumption of an average 130 kbpd refinery2
 Reference refinery with separate utility generation.
Fig. 2

Shifting 50% fired heater duty to the HRU implies a typical 70 MWe GT (Fig. 3). The HRSG correspondingly generates 57 tph of 34
barg steam and 17 tph 4 barg steam. With the above pricing, that constitutes a savings on the utility bill of approximately €7.4
mln/yr at an estimated investment of about €37.7 mln, i.e., a simple payout time of 5.1 years.

Refinery with HRU/HRSG cogeneration.

Fig. 3
However, more importantly, the significant emissions reduction is as follows:

NG HFO Reduction

CO2 56 kg/GJ 76 kg/GJ 98,700 tpy

SOx 0 kg/GJ 1.48 kg/GJ 2,480 tpy
NOx 0.045 / 0.040 kg/GJ
0.12 kg/GJ 169 tpy
Assuming 3 wt% S in HFO, burning to SO2
Gas-fired power plant
Gas-fired boiler/ heater

With respect to refinery energy efficiency, HRU/HRSG cogeneration has the following effect on the Solomon Energy Intensity Index
(Fig. 4). For a refinery operating at an EII of 100, the index can be improved by approximately 9 points by shifting 50% of the crude
heater duty into an HRU. For a refinery operating at an EII of 80, an estimated 7 points improvement is possible.

Estimated improvement on Solomon EII.

Fig. 4

Experiences. Such an HRU cogeneration scheme was built and commissioned at the S/A Dansk Shell refinery in Fredericia (Fig. 5)
in 1991 as part of a debottlenecking project. The only difference between its scheme and the above-mentioned concept is that the
remainder of the exhaust heat is not utilized for steam generation, but in a district heating scheme.
 Such an HRU/cogeneration scheme was installed at the
Fig. 5 S/A Dansk Shell refinery.

The HRU cogeneration unit was implemented by performing all possible construction and precommissioning activities before the
shutdown, with all tie-ins made during the scheduled refinery turnaround. The unit was/is operated to the refinery's satisfaction and
even allowed for continuing operations during a trip of the fired heater.

The Solomon Energy Index of the refinery is reputed to be the best of all Shell refineries,3 due to the highly efficient heat-integrated
gas turbine. The former refinery director was quoted to have said that this is technology that other refinery managers can only
dream about. As such, an HRU/HRSG cogeneration unit is a viable alternative to meet the increasingly stringent environmental
requirement. HP

LITERATURE CITED

1 Ahmad, S., G. T. Polley and E. A. Patela, Retrofit of Heat Exchanger Networks Subject to Pressure Drop Constraints, paper no

34a, AIChE Spring Meeting, Houston, April 1989.

2Dutch Notes on BAT for Mineral Oil Refineries, Final report: September 1999, Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning and the
Environment, Directorate for Air and Energy.

3 Shell Global Solutions, Fredericia puts Energise to the test, Impact 1, 2002.

Jos Sentjens, senior energy, power and utilities engineer, has 13 years' experience in process engineering. His experience
ranges from conceptual studies, basic engineering, detailed engineering, and construction support to commissioning/ startup.
Since his graduation, Mr. Sentjens has held a keen interest in pinch technology/ process integration developments which
evolved into his field of expertise. He has been a company representative at the UMIST's department of process integration
research consortium for six years and has effectively applied many process integration techniques, ranging from developing
new processes to retrofitting an existing plant.

Edwin Goudappel, energy, power and utilities supervisor, has 15 years' experience with Jacobs. He is responsible for sales
and operations of energy, power and utilities consultancy projects. Mr. Goudappel's key qualifications are: energy, power and
utilities consultancy projects; process design and coordination of basic design and requisitioning activities of cogeneration and
power plants; engineering software and performance monitoring systems for cogeneration and power plants; support of CHP
and power plant project development; and gas turbine technology and applications.