Investigation on using prospects of surplus pressure energy from natural gas transported through pipelines in Azerbaijan (in the order of discussion)

Abstract

For transportation of natural gas through the pipelines of compressor stations, its pressure increases. Up to 10 percent of this energy is used for the slipping by the pipeline walls and the most to the gas pressure reduction. The paper reviews the issues of efficiency increase of gas provision network of our Republic due to the decrease of energy losses in transportation, distribution and regulation systems of natural gas. For this purpose, the energy losses associated with the decrease of natural gas pressure in gas distribution plants and gas control units have been studied, as well as using efficiency of this energy justified. It was defined that the pressure of natural gas being transported to the customers through the delivery main, reduces down to the set value via throttle valves in gas distribution plants at first and in gas control units subsequently, which leads to the loss of significant portion of initial energy delivered through compressor stations during gas compression. The studies showed that using special traditional throttling valves instead of expansion units, so-called detanders, enables obtaining electrical energy via environmentally-friendly method with minimum investments due to the surplus gas pressure.