• • • RENEWABLE TECHNOLOGY • • •
Decarbonising petrochemical refining
Dennis Long, chief system designer at industrial electric equipment manufacturer Watlow, explains why opting for electric is crucial
P
etrochemical processes have traditionally been heated with fossil fuels, but pressure is building to mitigate carbon dioxide
emissions and advance long-term decarbonization goals. Fossil fuel heated processes leave big shoes to
fill when it comes to thermal processes, so electric process heaters often raise two big questions: how big can an electric heater be? And what is required to maintain proper control of large electric heaters? The technology behind process heaters has
changed dramatically in the last ten years. This is good news for the industry, as electric heaters must be able to provide the same or improved performance that petrochemical engineers have come to expect from fossil fuel powered heaters.
Electric process heaters versus
fossil fuel burning heaters To even consider replacing fossil fuel-burning heaters, we need to have a clear understanding of the current capabilities of electric process heaters. For instance, replacement does not make sense if electric heaters don’t come with the size and power required to heat processes that currently depend on fossil fuels. Many of those processes would require larger
electric heaters well above the common one- megawatt (MW) variety such as fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) heaters that require between 150 to 200 MW of power. With equipment of this size, a single vessel can have two heat exchanger bundles. Such a
setup can produce a single process vessel with a 15 MW duty rating or more. The few suppliers providing electric heaters at this scale can raise or lower the duty rating as technical requirements dictate. This kind of size and power presents a viable alternative for operations currently fired by fossil fuels. Besides reducing the use of fossil fuels, electric
heaters and heat exchangers have other well- documented advantages including less thermal lag, safer operation due to no fossil fuels to burn or combust and smaller overall footprint.
Maintaining control Most engineers have never seen electric process heaters and heat exchangers of these sizes or
28 ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING • DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023
electricalengineeringmagazine.co.uk
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