POWER October 2014 - 12

3. [E]ngenuity. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries'
newly developed 2-MW 16-cylinder
high-speed gas engine boasts one of the highest
power generation efficiency ratings for a
high-speed gas engine. Courtesy: MHI
4. A big dispatch. State-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom in September began construction
on a mega-pipeline that will send $400 billion worth of Russian gas to China over 30
years, starting in 2018. Courtesy: Gazprom
same exhaust volume as the GS16R2, a
1.5 MW- class gas engine developed by
MHI in 2012. As significantly, it adapts
a Miller cycle configuration to enhance
thermal efficiency, as well as two-stage
turbocharging, whereby " turbochargers
are arranged in series in the low- and
high-pressure stages and an intercooler
is placed between them, creating a configuration
that achieves outstanding efficiency
and a high-pressure ratio, " the
company explains.
The engine was developed in response
to Japan's urgent need for more generation
(and, particularly, cogeneration) in
the wake of the 2011 Great East Japan
Earthquake. " Overseas, substantial expansion
in the market for gas engine
power supplies is anticipated against the
backdrop of the promotion of distributed
power generation systems responding to
shale gas development in North America
and to expanding power consumption in
China and other Asian countries, " MHI
said.
China's government alone has announced
plans to introduce distributed
gas-engine power generation systems with
a total output of around 50 GW by 2020.
But MHI's prototype has yet to undergo
demonstration testing, which is planned from
this September through February 2015 at
MHI's engine production base in Kanagawa
Prefecture. If successful, MHI plans to expand
the newly developed 16-cylinder model to a
full series of 6- to 24-cylinder models offering
outputs ranging from 0.75 MW to 3 MW. The
new line will target applications including
distributed generation, regular generation
and cogeneration, and emergency generation
during times of disaster.
Construction of RussiaChina
Pipeline Kicks Off
Gazprom on Sept. 1 made the first weld of
a 4,000-km natural gas pipeline that will
run from gas production centers in Rus12
sia's
Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production
fields to Russia's Far Eastern regions and,
for the first time, to China.
The " Power of Siberia " ( " Sila Sibiri " in
Russian) gas transmission system is part
of Russia's plans to build a modern gas
network that connects its remote western
Siberia region and the Far East with the
country's Unified Gas Supply System.
At the same time, Gazprom is looking
to implement a May 2014-signed purchase
and sale agreement for Russian gas supplies
to China. That 30-year contract-
valued at $400 billion-will see the supply
of 38 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas
per year to energy-hungry China-or over
one trillion cubic meters (tcm) during the
whole contractual period.
It will mean laying 1.7 billion tons of
pipes between 2014 and 2018 amid complex
geological and climatic conditions,
spanning five Russian regions (Figure 4).
It will start from the Chayanda oil and
gas field in the Arctic region of Yakutia
(which will begin production in 2015 and
has gas reserves of 1.2 tcm), then run
within an integrated corridor with the
second stage of the Eastern Siberia-Pacific
Ocean oil pipeline. In Khabarovsk, a city
about 30 km from the Chinese border, the
pipeline will be connected to the 2011opened
Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok
pipeline, which transports gas to Russia's
Far East. Gazprom envisions the pipeline
being connected to Blagoveshchensk, on
the Russian-Chinese border, by 2018.
The pipeline, which will be the longest
in the world when completed, will cost
$20 billion to build. It will also require
innovative engineering concepts and
technologies, including pipeline monitoring
systems. " Among such applications are
www.powermag.com
[domestically] manufactured longitudinally
welded pipes made of cold resistant
steel K60 with external anti-corrosion and
smooth internal coating, 1,420 mm in diameter
and 21.7 mm of wall thickness,
designed for 100 Ata operating pressure, "
Gazprom said. " In the areas of tectonic
faults and intense seismic activity higher
than eight points the [pipeline] will
be made of high-strength pipes. "
Some experts suggest that when operational,
the pipeline will mark a clear shift
in the world's natural gas trade. Russia has
an imperative to diversify its exports away
from Europe owing to slack demand and the
conflict in Ukraine, through which almost
half of supplies to the continent flow.
Russian gas flows have been stopped
three times in the past decade-in 2006,
2009, and in 2014-stemming from price
disputes with Ukraine. But threats that
Russia could halt gas supplies this winter
have meanwhile lost their bite. European
Union (EU) Energy Commissioner Guenther
Oettinger told reporters on Aug. 27 that
the EU has a " Plan B for the worst-case
scenario. But we don't expect to need it, "
he said. He noted that European power and
gas providers have been storing as much
gas as possible over low demand periods.
At the same time, China's gas demand
has tripled since 2006, while imports have
surged from less than 1 bcm in 2006 to 53
bcm in 2013. The country's government
in April said that it will more than double
natural gas consumption, from 170 bcm
in 2013 to 400 bcm to 420 bcm in 2020.
For China, the pipeline means greater
natural gas security, a more diversified
import portfolio, and more supplies of a
fuel it could use to mitigate the country's
air-quality troubles.
POWER | October 2014

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POWER October 2014

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