Producers set to test new, low-emission, DMFC power supply for remote locations

Wellsites and pipelines far removed from the power grid use the pressure of produced natural gas to operate pneumatic pumps and instruments. Once used, the produced gas (mostly methane) is often vented to the atmosphere. While each user is small, there are tens of thousands operating in Alberta, and the cumulative effect is significant in terms of lost gas production and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Some wellsites have converted to electric injection pumps driven by solar energy. This approach has been successful in the United States, but the low solar flux in Canadian winters results in low reliability here.

A Calgary engineer, Darryl West, believes he has developed a better solution in a device called the Power Pod. It's a stand-alone electric power generating system (12/24VDC) for remote, off-grid locations like gas wellsites. It uses a hybrid approach, combining a small solar panel with a 67-watt direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC ) for power supply at any location, in any weather or season. The solar panel provides inexpensive power when it can, and is backed up by the fuel cell during times of low solar flux. Power is stored in batteries, with the DMFC , batteries and electronics protected by a climate-controlled enclosure to ensure operation to -40 C.

West spent about 18 years designing and manufacturing wellsite processing equipment, mostly for gas wells. One of the pieces he'd install was a pneumatically driven chemical injection pump, sometimes as many as three of them in one package.

"I often thought, 'These are fairly inexpensive to purchase but how expensive are they to operate?'" says West, president of Evergreen Energy Technologies Inc., which is partnered with SFC Smart Fuel Cell AG, a German company that supplies the fuel cell component. His customers also started questioning their operating costs as well as the environmental impacts of venting gas from the pumps.

He says when he became aware of DMFC technology he found a really natural fit.

"There's the attraction of the fuel source often being the chemical they're injecting, so it's available, there's the tie-in with other power requirements on these same locations for SCADA, communications, security, these kinds of things, currently served by solar but perhaps not with the reliability needed for some of these remote northern locations," says West. "I saw it as a good opportunity to build a unit that addresses a number of problems, not just the chemical injection problem -- but that certainly is our most striking case."

DMFCs operate at much cooler temperatures than the better-known hydrogen-based fuel cells, and use a flameless electrochemical reaction that converts liquid methanol, an energy-dense fuel, directly into electricity when required. Byproducts are waste heat, which the Power Pod uses to keep its batteries at efficient operating temperature, water vapour, and a very small amount of carbon dioxide. "Probably half of what you and I are breathing out right now," he tells his interviewer. For a typical task, for example a five-watt injection pump running at 10 gallons per day, Power Pod would consume one 10-litre container of liquid methanol over a one-year period. Essentially all of the methanol would be consumed in the winter months. West estimates that if the system were installed on the estimated 20,000 wells in Alberta alone that might warrant the system -- that is, have a high enough injection rate that it would be economical to install it -- then three to six megatonnes per year of CO2 equivalent would be prevented from entering the atmosphere.

That's roughly equivalent to the amount the Alberta government expects it will arrest with its $2 billion investment in carbon capture and storage. "We're saying we could make an additional contribution to reduction in emissions with a much, much lower overall investment, and a payback to the user."

At projected costs of $8,000 to $13,000 for a hybrid Power Pod it will take producers about two-and-a-half years to break even. That is equivalent to a return on their investment of 60% after taxes, he says.

In addition to pumps, it could supply electric power for SC ADA communications equipment, measurement of flow, cathodic protection for pipelines, air compression for instruments and other applications. "The more we talk to people, the more interesting applications they visualize," says West.

"As a remote power source, we expect that DMFC ... technology will provide better reliability to solar power, and reduced fuel consumption and GHG emissions compared to thermoelectric generators," says West.

The Power Pod is emerging from the research and development stage. The company has applied for patent protection and electrical approval from the Canadian Standards Association was recently granted. Now a handful of producers are interested in conducting six-month field trials and if successful the Power Pod will soon go into commercial production.

It has piqued the interest of Devon Canada Corporation, which will test the technology at two Alberta sites. Christine Kalivoda, Devon's leader of facility construction, says she is interested in the alternative energy source both as a means of saving money and for its environmental benefits.

Evergreen was recently awarded an "innovation voucher" by the Alberta government, which it can use to move the product towards commercialization. The Alberta Innovation Voucher Pilot Program funds projects with environmentally friendly and energy efficient technologies in Western Canada.

Source: Lynda Harrison