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.
