Solar technology is set to help with the extraction of crude oil following an agreement to build California’s largest solar energy plant.
GlassPoint Solar will supply Aera Energy, one of California’s largest oil and gas producers, with an integrated solar plant that will be the first of its kind to use solar steam and solar electricity to power oilfield operations. It is claimed that the finished Belridge Solar project will deliver the largest peak energy output of any solar plant in California.
“Our partnership with Aera demonstrates the growing energy convergence where renewables and traditional energy leaders are working together to address some of the biggest challenges of our time,” said Sanjeev Kumar, GlassPoint SVP, Americas.
GlassPoint’s solar technology will be used for the extraction of heavy oil, which accounts for half of California’s crude oil production. Heavy oil is produced by injecting steam into the reservoir to heat the oil so it can be pumped to the surface. This process – thermal Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) – typically generates steam using natural gas.
According to GlassPoint’s website, the company’s enclosed trough technology houses curved mirrors inside a greenhouse that track the sun throughout the day, focusing heat on pipes containing oilfield water. The concentrated sunlight boils the water to generate steam, which is then injected into the oil reservoir. To maintain steam injection 24/7, solar steam is injected during the day, and steam produced by burning natural gas is injected at night.
Belridge Solar will consist of an 850MWt solar thermal facility, producing 12 million barrels of steam per year, and a 26.5MWe photovoltaic facility to generate electricity. The solar-generated steam and electricity will reduce natural gas currently used onsite in oilfield operations.
Aera and GlassPoint plan to break ground on the Belridge Solar plant in the first half of 2019. The project is expected to start producing steam and electricity as early as 2020.
In 2011, GlassPoint unveiled its first commercial project with Berry Petroleum in Kern County, California. Following the success of the pilot project, GlassPoint scaled its technology overseas in Oman and is currently constructing Miraah, a project with Petroleum Development Oman (PDO). Once complete, Miraah will produce over one gigawatt of peak thermal energy, making it one of the world’s largest solar plants.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE ENGINEERING NEWS
This looks like an excellent use of solar concentrators to raise steam for a steam using process rather than electrical generation. EOR uses a lot of steam and a mix of gas firer boilers and solar boilers looks like a good economic balance: steam is more easily balanced against unreliability than generating plant as has as far slower response time.
The solar generation aspect is more difficult to justify as the cost and implications of the unreliability of these is still entirely dependent upon the availability of large subsidies.
I would have hoped they would have gone for a higher temperature concentration and storage – which would have removed the need for (inefficient) solar voltaic (as electricity, presumably for pumping) could be generated from a higher temperature steam. This could have eliminated the need for gas based generators – possibly allowing said (well-head?) gas to be made into oil
Errr…, how much is a ‘barrel of steam’ please…?
My initial thought is – Why use the solar energy to extract heavy oil when it could be used to power conventional steam turbines and generate electricity?
Secondly, why not store half the thermal energy overnight (using molten-salt ?) so that natural gas usage can be reduced to zero? GlassPoint do promote their solar thermal technology as a proven, sustainable and reliable alternative to traditional oil recovery methods. Also, thermal energy storage has been demonstrated elswhere.
If Aera Energy (jointly owned by Shell and ExxonMobil) is serious about becoming environmentally responsible they should offset the carbon content of the oil produced with an equivalent amount of carbon capture and storage.
This is just another example of an oil company doing too little too late, this being no more than a PR exercise.
I think that the oil companies benefit from solar as it is; as they can use gas powered generators when the sun doesn’t shine (or the wind not blowing). In fact the oil industry attacks nuclear saying that,with (now) cheap (fracked?), gas nuclear is not relevant for base load (though it depends if one is concerned about CO2…) – and so solar helps boost demand for gas…
Sad to see this. This deal will increase Aera’s EOR costs by 2-3/mmbtu over available alternatives. At a steam:oil ratio of only 4, this will increase their production costs by $4-6/bbl.
How smart is this?
Can you explain where the extra costs come from as a lot of fuel is being saved and that is usually the biggest component of EOR costs? The extra complexity and solar plant are obviously expensive, is that the reason for this large increase in costs over conventional steam based EOR?