Many natural gas pipelines use gas turbines to power the transportation of natural gas to their customers. The hot exhaust gas from these turbines generally has been vented to the atmosphere as "waste heat.” Recovering the heat produced by these machines and using this energy to generate electricity where feasible is a way to promote increased energy efficiency and reduce green house gas emissions.
As a way of contributing to the process for the development of compressor station waste heat recovery projects, a number of pipeline companies, in concert with the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America, have agreed on a voluntary basis to identify through web site postings gas turbine compressor stations on their systems, if any, that: (1) Have a total gas turbine station capacity of at least 15,000 hp; and (2) Operated at or more than 5,250 hours per year (60 percent load factor) over the previous 12 months. Carolina Gas Transmission has determined to participate in this voluntary web site posting program. Currently, Carolina Gas Transmission does not own or operate any gas turbine compressor stations which meet these thresholds. |