Electric actuators used in solar-powered automation project

The water gathering system in an oilfield water management plant was in need of improvements for enhanced control and efficiency. Rotork provided individual solar panels with control stations and Rotork IQ3 actuators in order to meet these requirements.

A major US oilfield water management company requested help to develop solar-powered control stations for some of its water gathering pipelines in West Texas and New
Mexico. Water, a by-product of oil and gas production, requires careful management. Often known as ‘produced water’, the product is the largest volume waste stream associated with upstream petroleum operations.

At most oil shale fields produced water from wells is gathered via a pipeline infrastructure to transfer it to temporary storage at either a disposal well location or a central treatment facility.

In order to improve its water gathering operation, the customer worked with automation equipment supplier Wolseley Industrial Group to investigate automated valve technology to control the flow in the high-pressure pipelines.

The customer had specific requirements for the valve application including the need to control system pressure to and from the well sites, shutdown lines in the event of a leak or other failure, and to eliminate high maintenance devices such as air compressors and other rotating equipment.

With a lack of available gas and electricity in the isolated locations, the use of solar power to control pipeline flow was seen as the most effective alternative. It soon became clear that electricity would have to be generated at each control station installed along the water gathering pipelines, so Rotork was contacted to provide IQ3 intelligent electric multi-turn actuators and solar panels to power them.

客户在网格远离网格的区域中每五英里都需要阀门和执行器，因此，沃尔斯利工业集团（Wolseley Industrial Group）设计了将单个太阳能电池板与控制站和Rotork IQ3执行器相结合的解决方案。每个控制站都包括一个IQ3执行器，以控制12或16英寸的球阀，每个组件都配备了太阳能电池板，以供电24、48或120 VDC电动机。