Northern Power, a subsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: DESC), has been awarded a $1.8 million follow-on contract by the Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline Company for a stand-alone power system at an emergency drain-down facility along the BTC export oil pipeline in Kodiana, Georgia. The project is the third between Northern Power and BTC, and will be the 39th Northern Power system on the pipeline.
The Kodiana emergency drain-down facility is located in a valley in the Republic of Georgia, where the continents of Europe and Asia meet. In the event of a rupture in the pipeline at any point between the two peaks that flank the valley, Northern Power’s system is designed to power a pumping system to channel oil flowing through the pipeline into a specially designed underground holding tank. The power system will also ensure a reliable power source for additional pumps in the underground tank to pump oil out of the tank and back into the pipeline after a rupture is repaired.
“The emergency drain-down system was mandated by the government of Georgia to protect the environment,” stated Michael Brennan, vice president at Northern Power. “The power system we have designed will play a critical role in meeting the safety and environmental requirements of this site on the pipeline.”
The power system will be housed above ground near the main underground holding tank in a set of three shelters. The shelters will be placed side-by-side and designed to comply with a stringent noise specification, to help minimize the system’s impact on the surrounding environment.
One shelter will contain two Kohler 80 kVA generator sets (gensets) and a 4,000-gallon tank for diesel fuel, a design that provides both security and safety at the site. Two 188-gallon tanks will be positioned underneath the gensets to provide additional fuel capacity. The equipment shelter, composed of three joined, modified ISO shipping containers, will contain a dual redundant uninterruptible power system (UPS), redundant battery banks, fire and gas protection, power distribution, and motor and system controls.
The power system will be monitored and controlled by a state-of-the-art, microprocessor-based controller designed around industrially proven programmable logic control (PLC) technology. Northern Power’s SC-500(TM) system controller and RemoteView(TM) monitoring software provide flexibility to manage virtually all aspects of the system, monitoring backup battery voltage, fuel level, genset room temperature, exterior shelter temperature, and critical equipment status.
The Kodiana emergency drain-down facility contract award follows Northern Power’s earlier work on the BTC pipeline. In the last four years, Northern Power has provided a total of 38 power systems on the 690-kilometer portion of the pipeline that stretches from Baku, Azerbaijan through the Republic of Georgia. The systems ensure that uninterruptible power is available for critical load applications such as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), fiber optic telecommunication, cathodic protection, and main line block valve actuation on the pipeline.
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