Proposing a Novel Configuration for CGSs Aimed at Reducing Energy Consumption and Exergy Destruction

A CGS is of the most important parts in natural gas transmission pipelines in which the high inlet natural gas (NG) pressure is reduced to much lower value by employing a throttling valve. This pressure drop causes hydrate forming, preventing stable NG flow through the pipeline. To prevent hydrate forming, NG is usually preheated by heaters which burns remarkable amount of NG. In this work, a novel configuration for CGSs is proposed in which solar heat is utilized to decrease fuel consumption and a turbo expander is employed to utilize the available exergy in the NG stream to produce power. Finally, an economic analysis is done on the proposed configuration based on NPV method in order to calculate optimum cost of capital and the configuration efficiency.