An oil shale recovery system powered by solar thermal energy. (15th June 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hou, Hongjuan; Du, Qiongjie; Huang, Chang; Zhang, Le; Hu, Eric
• Is Part Of: Energy. Volume 225(2021)
• Publication Date: 2021-06-15
• Subjects: Solar energy -- Oil shale -- In-situ recovery -- Intermittent heating; Power resources -- Periodicals; Power (Mechanics) -- Periodicals; Energy consumption -- Periodicals; 333.7905
• DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2021.120096
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0360-5442

Abstract

Abstract: The oil shale in-situ recovery requires huge thermal energy, which has become one of the important factors restricting its further development. Using solar thermal energy for oil shale in-situ recovery is thought to be an environmental friendly way to solve the problem. In this paper, an in-situ solar thermal shale oil recovery system with rated output power of 100 MW is analyzed as a study case to understand its cost-effectiveness. The correlation between oil shale production cost ( PC ) and the solar multiple (SM), the thermal energy storage (TES) capacity and the distance between injection well and production well ( D w ) is studied. The result shows that, when the SM is 2.5, TES capacity is 16 h, and D w is 20 m, the PC of oil shale in-situ recovery with solar intermittent heating mode is the lowest, which is 306 $/t and is even lower than that with continuous heating mode by natural gas and natural gas-assisted solar energy. Besides, the sensitivity analysis shows that the cost of O&M has the biggest effect on the PC . However, due to the high initial cost of the solar field, when the discount rate is above 8.23%, oil shale in-situ recovery by solar energy intermittent heating is uneconomical. Highlights: Oil shale recovery by intermittent solar heating is proposed. Effects of solar multiple, storage capacity and well spacing are studied. Intermittent solar heating can further reduce oil shale recovery costs.