Possibilities of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) use for power generation

Abstract

Liquefied natural gas (LNG) has an important role in the global industry and energy balance. The use of this energy carrier has been increasing for last decades. The broad development of the LNG sector has been noticeable in the search for new supply directions by natural gas customers. An important option to transport the gas is to convert it into liquid natural gas (LNG) and convey it using insulated LNG tankers. At receiving terminals, the LNG is unloaded into storage tanks and then pumped for the required pressure, vaporized and compressed for final pipeline transmission to natural gas pipeline system. The LNG production process consumes a considerable amount of energy. This energy is stored in LNG as cold energy. At an unloading terminal, LNG is evaporated into gas phase at ambient temperature before pumping into the natural gas transmission system. Seawater or ambient airare commonly used for the regasification process of the LNG. In process of regasification the large part of energy stored in LNG may be recovered and used for electricity generation. In the presented paper a general analysis of the various thermodynamic schemes proposed for power production from regasification has been made. Direct expansion cycle, Rankine cycle and Brayton cycle are analyzed in presented case.