EXHEAT Electric Heaters in Saudi Power Generation

EXHEAT being one of the world's foremost designers and manufacturers of electric process heating systems has been winning number of orders in power generation industry; this article focuses on heaters supplied to Saudi Arabian power plants.

Electric process heaters have significant technical and commercial advantages over conventional Shell & Tube, Gas fired or Plate type heaters due to precise temperature control, instant cold-start, easy process hook up, 100% turn down capacity.

EXHEAT specializes in design and manufacturing of certified and custom made hazardous area electric heaters for use in Zone 1 and Zone 2 areas with accompanying certification such as ATEX, IECx, CSA, and NEC amongst others.

EXHEAT has designed and supplied the following heaters to Saudi Arabian power plants

• 6 x 400kW, 4 x 2200kW & 1 x 1350kW Fuel Oil heaters for Tihama Power Plant Forwarding
• 7 x 2450 Crude Oil Heaters for Rabigh Power Plant
• 8 x 950kW, 5 x 2800kW Crude Oil Heaters for Jeddah PP3 Power Plant
• 36 x 1250kW Gas Turbine Crude Oil Heaters for Riyadh PP10 Power Plant
• 1 x 650kW, 1 x 500kW Crude Oil Heaters for Taberjal Power Plant
• 3 x 300kW Fuel Gas, 3 x 65kW Air Heaters for Shaybah Power Plant

 

Combined Cycle Power Plants and Electric Heaters:
In a combined cycle power plant waste heat from gas turbine is recovered to generate additional electricity via a steam turbine; this enhances the efficiency of electricity generation. In a thermal power plant, high-temperature heat as input to the power plant, usually from burning of fuel, is converted to electricity as one of the outputs and low-temperature heat as another output. In order to achieve high efficiency, the temperature difference between the input and output heat levels should be as high as possible, combined cycle operation helps to achieve maximum temperature difference.

An electric superheater can be used to raise the temperature of the steam supplied to the steam turbine seal system. The superheater will increase the temperature of the incoming steam to match the steam turbine internal metal temperature during start-up and shut-down operation. Electric heaters are most ideal for this application because they don't need to recover any heat since the energy is supplied by electricity and generally incoming steam to this process will not be constant but rigorously varying conditions, both temperatures and pressures. Due to 100% turn down and quick electronic negative feedback control, electric heaters can respond to any system changes without the need of any extra process mechanical or electrical equipment.

Non standoff designs:
In low temperature and low pressure power plant heating applications generally involving heating Crude Oils, Fuel Oils and Water where combination of pressure, operating temperature and ambient temperatures allow, EXHEAT can offer non standoff designs. This design is certified for use in Zone 1 and Zon2 hazardous areas. There are significant commercial advantages in non stand off designs because it allows fitting more number of elements in same shell due to 22mm element pitch, eliminates the cost of stand off assembly and allows simpler welding.

Duel Fuel Gas Turbines: Crude Oil Heaters
Primary fuel for gas turbines is natural gas but to ease up start up process gas turbines are now a days designed to burn other energy sources like fuel oil, crude oil or synthesis gas. Duel fuel burning capacity allows power plant users to choose between crude oil or fuel gas depending on fuel prices. GT crude oil electric heaters specially useful to heat crude oil fuel during the start up process. -- EXHEAT won a contact to supply 36 x gas turbine crude oil heater skids and associated thyristor control systems.