OPERATION & MAINTENANCE OF POWER PLANTS
Daryl Stothard discusses the importance of electric actuation in carbon capture and storage
ENABLINGCCSSOLUTIONS
Carbon capture is becoming an
increasingly central part of international decarbonisation intiatives
V
arious ‘low carbon’ future energy solutions are being evaluated to complement intermittent renewable sources globally. According to
National Geographic, over 80% of our energy comes from fossil fuels that, when burnt, further exacerbate our current climate emergency. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is one potential solution to this problem. By extracting carbon dioxide (CO2
) from
point sources, such as the fl ue gas stacks, and sequestering it, CCS provides options for achieving net zero objectives. While the energy is produced from traditional hydrocarbons and industries, governments are incentivising new ways to decarbonise. To meet climate change targets in the
next 30 years, approximately 7,500 large- scale carbon capture facilities must be deployed (IEA, ‘Net Zero by 2050’, May 2021). Electric actuators can be part of the progressive solutions being developed today to meet this ambition for energy transition. T is signifi cant growth in required CCS, is only possible by driving down
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the costs to enable more companies to participate. Understanding the market needs is ore important now than ever. Rotork can support three core needs of CCS, these being effi ciency, risk reduction and optimisation.
EFFICIENCY Effi ciency is fundamentally important to the productivity of CCS. Electric and electro-hydraulic on-off and control valve actuators enable carbon capture industrial processing plants to simplify valve control operations. Complete electric valve actuation removes the need for an intrusive compressed air instrumentation system, so overall installation time is dramatically reduced compared to pneumatic valve actuation. T ere is a need for simple systems to enable aff ordable carbon capture plant designs to be easily adapted to their site needs.
RISK REDUCTION Air compressors, tanks, dryers, tubing, control panels and lubricator sizing are
not needed to be changed between new customer project sites when installing electric actuators such as the IQ intelligent range, saving signifi cant costs in time and money. Electric valve actuators meet more end-user specifi cations, as standard, for the same applications, where pneumatic valve actuation solutions would need modifi cations between customers. Due to existing brownfi eld legacy specifi cations, some customers will require inherent pneumatic valve actuation when carbon capture is added to their site.
OPTIMISATION Electric valve actuators optimise space by eliminating the need for compressed air systems. When compressed air is already available at a brownfi eld site, it could be impractical and expensive, in need of detailed engineering and modifi cations for these sites to utilise for CCUS. Electric actuation is less carbon-intensive
by removing the instrument air system – including compressors, tanks, dryer fi lters,
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