Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - AirWatt (Innovative Microturbine Technology For Delocalised, Off-Grid Electricity Generation)

Teaser

AirWatt innovation lies in its use of the potential energy of the pressurised gas in a pipeline to generate power for ancillary equipment for the maintenance, monitoring and operation of the pipeline systems. This is possible due to the gas flow in the pipeline and the...

Summary

AirWatt innovation lies in its use of the potential energy of the pressurised gas in a pipeline to generate power for ancillary equipment for the maintenance, monitoring and operation of the pipeline systems. This is possible due to the gas flow in the pipeline and the pressure drops that are already present: the largest pipelines for bulk transport of gas operate with a pressure from 50 to 200 bar, while for urban distribution this has to be reduced to 4 to 5 bar and, finally, the domestic supply is just 20 millibar. AirWatt uses these drops in pressure to drive the gas through a patented, miniaturised, integrated turbine and electrical generator, designed to be introduced into the gas supply pipelines which generates electricity, harvesting the available energy for free, with no emissions or burning of fuel.

In the 21st century industrial energy markets, such as Oil & Gas, face challenges linked to an efficient production and management of assets in remote locations. The emergence of a new kind of real-time monitoring systems and the “Industrial Internet of Things” (IIoT), combining wireless communication and networking technologies with sensor technologies, is changing the industry as it focuses more on safety, automation, and operational efficiency. The demand for more intensive monitoring, measurement and process control.
These systems need to be designed to operate in places where human intervention is infrequent, undesirable or infeasible, for instance sparsely populated areas, in the presence of hazards or distributed across a wide area.

However, all these systems require additional power, as they increase in sophistication and complexity. The direct consequence of this evolution is therefore a growing demand in energy and how to power the remote installations. This crucial demand explains the increased reliance on off-grid power when the grid-connected power is not available, which is the case with gas pipeline network, especially those placed in very harsh environments and not reached by the national grid.

In this light, AirWatt microturbine is an effective enabling technology for the IIoT in the gas industry.

Work performed

The work performed within the first reporting period can be summarised as follows:

Technical activities

• Microturbine design: starting from the optimisation of the current microturbine we finalised the upscaled design; in particular a detailed mechanical, fluid-dynamic and electromagnetic design of the microturbine and generator, as well as the electronic control board. [WP2]

• Selection of the manufacturing techniques to meet the design requirements of the microturbine. Some prototypes were made of the optimised microturbines to test the different design solutions and the manufacturing and assembly methods envisaged. [WP3]

• Adaptation of FAST Remote Terminal Unit (RTU) hardware and software to the AirWatt microturbine power supply, overcoming the current limitation of a battery powered RTU. The activity encompassed new hardware and software design. [WP4]

• Certification: Assessment and compliance of AirWatt technology regarding EU standards, namely Machine Directive, EMC Directive and ATEX Directive. A thorough risk Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. [WP6]

Commercial activities

• Preparation of AirWatt commercialisation, which includes the consolidation of the marketing strategy (pricing policy, selling propositions, target markets) and the development of commercial agreements to ensure maximum penetration from the launch planned for 2018. [WP7]

• Raising awareness around this new technology using dissemination means (dedicated website, LinkedIn, videos, promotional materials), one-to-one meetings with potential customers and interested parties. We also attended selected trade fairs and events, and developed a live demo skid for demonstrations. [WP7]

Final results

Natural gas is an important part of the global energy strategy and is expected to remain so, being the cleanest burning fossil fuel and known exploitable reserves growing. Natural gas will likely satisfy a quarter of the global energy needs by 2030. Europe counts close to 4,000 gas Transmission System Operators which serve 118 million gas customers, for about 270 million EU citizens and 7 million commercial/industrial consumers. To do so, the operators use a gas distribution network which represents more than 2.1 million kilometres across Europe.

In the evolution of the European gas distribution network towards higher level of safety and better use of the energy, the smart gas grids have a key role.
Smart gas grids are therefore in the centre of the European Commission Smart Energy Agenda and its Energy Efficiency Directive (2006/32/CE), and will impact directly on the achievement of the 20/20/20 EU goals and the use of low carbon power. However, the EU smart gas distribution market is currently behind the electric grid industry and needs to update its networks, communications and metering/monitoring instrumentations and devices. AirWatt is fully in line with this evolution as it provides an innovative off-grid power supply solution and associated remote monitoring system to enable real-time monitoring of gas pipelines with advanced communications to drive greater operational efficiencies as well as safety of gas utilities and reduced energy consumption.

The specific market that is targeted with AirWatt is gas distribution. This market is based on the pipeline infrastructure, which in most cases will be an existing installation with a long-expected service life. However, in order to ensure that these installations are kept in line with modern objectives of establishing smart gas grids, they will require upgrading of ancillary elements. AirWatt is perfectly suited for this type of retrofit installation, being compact and able to be installed with minimal modifications to existing pipework, thereby easily bringing existing gas pipelines, as well as new installations, up to the latest specifications for monitoring and control

AirWatt and AirWatt-based remote terminal unit have clear Selling Points: Reliability and quality of generated electricity (up to 80 W/unit), weather independent and not significantly restricted by temperature, low maintenance, secured and compact (almost unnoticeable), low theft risk and cost competitive.
These tangible benefits for users will translate into a clear interest for AirWatt’s innovation, which in fact will be better and less costly than alternatives, in the short term and in the total cost during the product’s lifecycle.

Website & more info

More info: http://www.airwatt.eu/.