Power Plant
Power plants generate power to feed power consumers existing in the project - especially heating wells and rigs, and generally wells, facilities and jobs for which power consumption has been defined under operational resources. Fuel requirements are calculated as gas consumed according to a Heat Rate factor. Gas can be provided by the field or by an external source.
The following inputs specific to power plants are entered in a separate Power Generation tab:
- Power Capacity: Site-rated power capacity, i.e. the maximum power deliverable by the power plant.
- OpEx: Operating expenses as a function of power delivered.
- Heat Rate: Fuel to power conversion factor. This value is used to calculate how much gas is required to produce a given amount of power.
- Operate at full capacity: Check to make the plant work always at full capacity even if the field requires less power than generated by the plant. If left unchecked, the facility will try to generate only the power required by the sum of the consumers in the project.
- Use External Gas: Check this field to enable the acquisition of gas for power generation. Gas will be acquired only if the amount of gas coming from the field is not enough to meet the plant requirements.
- External Gas Limit: Define a limit to the amount of external gas able to be acquired.
When the sum of the power plants in the project cannot provide the power required by the field, either because of shortage of fuel or because of capacity limits, PetroVR de-energizes consumers sequentially, i.e. one after the other instead of all at the same time. Since de-energized consumers cannot perform their tasks (e.g. rigs cannot drill wells), this curtailment policy ensures minimal impact on scheduled tasks.
Power consumed by de-energized consumers is reported as sold.
The Power System
PetroVR models power administration as a single entity, known as the Power System, which generates its own results and reports them under its own heading.
Power distribution from power plants to consumers is not explicitly modeled, i.e. no connection lines are provided, as in the case of fluid routing from wells through facilities to selling points. It is understood that all the power available can reach any possible consumer defined in the system. Consequently, individual power plants report data concerning their own operation (power generated, fuel consumed) but not the destination or utilization of the power generated by it, which is reported by the Power System as a whole.
Power System Runtime Variables
The following Runtime Variables refer specifically to power distribution and consumption.
| Name | Description | Objects |
|---|---|---|
| Power Deficit | Power requested by the consumers at the current step which was not provided by the power system. | Power System |
| Power Delivered | Power requested by the consumers at the current step and provided by the power system. | Power System |
| Power Purchased | Power purchased at the current step to complete the requirement of the field. | Power System |
| Power Required | Power requested by the consumers at the current step. | Power System |
| Power Sold | Power generated by the power system and not consumed by the field consumers. | Power System |