Solar-Assisted Hybrid Oil Heating System for Heavy Refinery Product Storage /

Abstract

Energy management and environmental protection are presently major concerns for the industrial sector. In crude oil refineries, heating crude oil products is a substantial and energy-intensive process. Significant quantities of heat are needed to maintain the temperature of crude oil products before it is dispatched from the storage tank. The purpose of this study is to investigate the potential use of solar energy within an oil refinery to reduce its fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. A validated ASPHEN HYSYS model was used to investigate the products produced from heavy crude oil in the refinery. Using TRNSYS software, the proposed Parabolic Trough Collector (PTC)-based solar heating system paired with the boiler is modeled. A thermal energy storage (TES) system is integrated into the refinery's process heating to handle the intermittent nature of solar energy. It was discovered that 463 m of the PTC area coupled with a 15000-liter TES tank can result in a maximum life cycle cost savings of 21.046 thousand USD for an annual heat supply of 116,944 MWh. In the proposed hybrid heating system, the yearly solar fraction is determined to be 26.71% and the payback period is 8.37 years. In addition, the system can yearly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 34.045 tonnes of CO2 equivalents. The proposed hybrid configuration analysis presented in the current work provides a possible solution to maintain the temperature of crude oil products before it is dispatched from the storage tank in a refinery.