Yesterday I had a really nice yet short conversation with one of my best friend about biofuel status in Indonesia. Why did we talk about this subject? It is because I wanted to participate in one of biofuel feasibility study tender. My friend I talked about has been working in this area for a quite long time. So, I wanted to know her opinion about this subject. Read More
Get to Know Glycol Dehydration Unit
Natural gas dehydration unit is one of important facilities in natural gas processing. Purpose of water vapor removal in natural gas are to prevent gas hydrates formation and to reduce corrossion in pipeline. There are several methods of gas dehydration, which are absorption with liquid desiccant, adsorption with solid desiccant, and cooling below initial dew point. Selection of the method is depend on water content in feed gas and required dew-point in dry gas.
One of the most popular methods of natural gas dehydration is absorption process employing diethylene glycol or triethylene glycol as dehydration medium or desiccant. It is a mature process having been used for over fifty years. Triethylene glycol has emerged as the most popular chemicals in recent years due to several favorable desiccant characteristics. Those characteristics are high affinity for water vapor, non-corrosive, ease of generation, and low chemical losses. Read More
Attending Microhydro Workshop in CRCS ITB (Part 2, End)
This post is continuation of my first post about my participation in workshop on microhydro power plant in national seminar on instrumentation, control, and automation. Please read the first post first to get overall picture of the workshop.
I am lucky to see some of main equipments in microhydro power plant workshop. Picture below is example of microhydro power plant for study purpose. Read More
Attending Microhydro Workshop in CRCS ITB (Part 1)
On 11-12 December 2018, I had an opportunity to participate in national seminar on instrumentation, control, and automation, as well as microhydro workshop. This event was held by CITA ITB (Center for Instrumentation Technology and Automation Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia). It was a really awesome event, especially workshop on microhydro. In this post, I want to share to you what I got from the workshop. Read More
Sizing and Horse Power Estimation of Counterflow Induced-Draft Cooling Tower
In this post I want to share to you how to do preliminary sizing and horse power estimation for counterflow induced-draft cooling tower. Calculation in this post do not apply to counterflow cooling tower. Also they do not apply when the approach to cold water temperature is less than 5oF (2.8oC). Read More
Cooling Pond Sizing
In this post, I want to share to you how to size cooling pond. Cooling pond is used to remove heat from water by means of air. Example of application of cooling pond is to remove heat from brine water in geothermal power plant facilities.
To design cooling pond, you need process data and environment data. Process data are flow rate of liquid to be cooled, initial temperature, final temperature, and density of liquid. Environent data are relative humidity, wind velocity, average air temperature, and solar heat gain. Here is example of cooling pond sizing. Read More
Six Reasons Why Solar Power Plants are Difficult to Develop in Indonesia
Based on RUPTL PLN 2018, installed capacity of solar power plants in Indonesia is only 78.5 MW. It is the lowest capacity among other type of renewable energy sources. I wonder what makes this happened.
[Read more: Small Scale Geothermal Power Plant is My Project of the Year!)
Based on Indonesia vice minister of energy and mineral resources, there are six reasons why solar power plants are difficult to develop in Indonesia. Read More
The First Commercial Wind Power Generation is Build in Indonesia
Last week I read performance report of Indonesia Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. Indonesia has succeeded in developing the first commercial wind farm in Indonesia. The wind farm was constructed in Sidrap, South Sulawesi. The capacity is 75 MW, consisted of 30 turbines with capacity of 2.5 MW each. The wind farm can supply electricity to 150.000 houses (450 VA per house) [1].
Sidrap wind farm was sponsored by UPC Solar and Wind Investment LLC, a Delaware limited liability company [2]. The wind farm is operated by PT Sidrap Bayu Energi. The electricity is sold to PT Perusahaan Listrik Negara (PLN) to a 30-year power purchase agreement [2]. Read More
Natural Gas Dehydration using Desiccant and Sizing (Bonus Free Spreadsheet)
In this post, I want to share you about natural gas dehydration using desiccant using adsorption principle and how to size it.
In common commercial use, desiccant can be classified into three categories, which are gels (alumina or silica gels), alumina, and molecular sieves.
When used for natural gas dehydration, silica gel will give outlet dewpoints of approximately -70o to -80oF. As for alumina, outlet dewpoint is appoximately -100oF. Molecular sieves produced the lowest water dewpoints, as low as -150oF. For gas going into cryogenic processing, the only adsorbent that can obtain the required dehydration is a molecular sieve.
Table below shows characteristics of several type of desiccants [1]. Read More
Pneumatic Power Supply for Instrumentation and Its Selection
In almost every plant, we need to install control valve, shutdown valve, and/or blow down valve. These valves can be operated by power supplies from pneumatic system, hydraulic system, or electrical system. In this post, I want to share you pneumatic power supply for instrumentation and general guidelines for selection. Read More