Electric Power System Profile in Kuwait: Electricity and Water

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Electric Power System Profile in Kuwait: Electricity and Water Generation, Fuel Consumption and Cost Estimation Nawaf S. Alhajeri, Fahad M. Al-Fadhli, Ahmed Z. Aly, Andrew Reimers, and Michael E. Webber ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/ acssuschemeng.8b01672 • Publication Date (Web): 13 Jun 2018 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on June 14, 2018

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ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering

Electric Power System Profile in Kuwait: Electricity and Water Generation, Fuel Consumption and Cost Estimation Nawaf S. Alhajeri†*, Fahad M. Al-Fadhli‡, Ahmed Z. Aly‡, Andrew Reimers§, and Michael E. Webber§ †

Department of Environmental Technology Management, College of Life Sciences, Kuwait

University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait, Email: [email protected]

‡

Department of Chemical Engineering. College of Engineering and Petroleum, Kuwait

University, P.O.Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait

§

Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, 204 E. Dean

Keeton St. C2200, Austin, Texas 78712, United States

*

Corresponding author email address: [email protected]

ACS Paragon Plus Environment

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ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to enhance the sustainability of the electric power system for the State of Kuwait by helping establish an integrated model that links electricity generation, water production, fuel consumption and the associated cost. By analyzing and collecting data from separate resources for 2014, various conclusions are drawn. Most importantly is the notable impact of the dilemma Kuwait faces regarding excessive water production rates and, consequently, the maintainability of huge water storage facilities, as water and electricity production are very closely related and the electricity demand varies greatly over the course of a year, whereas the water demand stays relatively the same. The solution to this problem is the establishment of a Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) interconnected water grid similar to the already established electricity grid. The study extends the one-year period to include the monthly fuel consumption and price and the total fuel cost of the period from 2010 until the end of 2015, from which it is observed that Kuwait relies primarily on heavy fuel oil (as a base load fuel) for power generation, followed by natural gas. Crude oil consumption has steadily decreased throughout the years, whereas gas oil consumption has increased, as crude oil is a valuable export and evidence has been presented supporting the apparent move towards consuming greener fuels. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of the fuel consumption data against prices is conducted, in which no definitive fuel allocation method is found to exist.

KEYWORDS Energy system, power plants, fuel cost, water production, combined cycle turbines, sustainability


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INTRODUCTION The State of Kuwait faces an ever-increasing demand for electricity and water corresponding to the rapid population growth. To meet this demand, seven power stations have been installed in Kuwait (as of 2014) to produce an electric load of 15719 MW.1 Because Kuwait has no natural fresh water resources of its own and relies entirely on the desalination of sea water to produce fresh water, these power plants not only produce the required electric energy but also supply large amounts of distilled water. Thus, the power and water production systems are extensively coupled and rely directly on one another. The distilled water produced by the desalination units is of very low salinity. This low salinity is essential for the electricity generation units (EGUs) to achieve satisfactory performance, as the water produced by the desalination units is converted to steam via heating and used to run the turbines that produce electricity. The electricity generation units in turn supply the desalination plant with the thermal energy necessary to heat and consequently desalinate sea water. The thermal power plants in Kuwait consume four types of fossil fuel: heavy fuel oil (HFO), crude oil (CO), gas oil (GO) and natural gas (NG). The consumption of fossil fuel has a serious impact on the environment. Deterioration of the air quality due to the uncontrolled release of air pollutants, the consumption of huge land areas, and the discarding of untreated water into the environment are only some examples of how electricity generation units can damage the environment. In Kuwait, all power stations completely rely on the burning of unclean fossil fuel making the electric power system in Kuwait a major source of environmental pollution. One of the aspects of the environment most prevalently damaged by EGUs is the air quality. The pollutants that are released into the atmosphere by EGUs include sulfur dioxide (SO2), nitrogen oxides (NOX), carbon monoxide (CO), unburned hydrocarbons (HCs) and particulate


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matters (PM).2 Moreover, electric power systems consume a large amount of water, usually fresh water, in the process of electricity generation when using steam turbines. For a country such as Kuwait, where water resources are scarce, a shortage of fresh water and failure to meet the demands of the population will have devastating consequences. In addition to the air and water pollution, EGUs produce a large amount of waste, the improper disposal of which can lead to hazardous events.3 The generated waste not only contaminates the soil but can also find its way into nearby groundwater resources and contaminate them as well.4 A few studies have addressed the impact of power plants on the environment in Kuwait.5-8 Most of these studies assessed the potential impact of SO2, as the biggest concern of the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) is to minimize the sulfur content in the fossil fuel burned in their thermal stations.1 These studies proved that SO2 emissions released from power stations violate Kuwait Environment Public Authority (KEPA) standards.9-11 Other studies confirmed that there is a violation in NOx and Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) concentration in the areas around power stations in Kuwait.11-16 In addition, power plants’ impact on seawater is significant in terms of the dangers industrial discharging activities could pose to marine wildlife, as is evidenced by a study found that power plants’ discharging activities in Kuwait contributed to increased mercury levels at Kuwait’s offshore bay. 17 Not only could mercury levels be affected by discharging activities from power plants, as per a study by Bu-Olayan et al. which measured the concentrations of some trace metals at different offshore stations. Accordingly, the concentrations of some metals namely, Cu and Fe, were highest for the station that is close to Doha power plants. 18 This result is consistent with another study by Tarique et al. and Darwish et al. 19,20 Moreover, seawater in the gulf area has been under stress due to the heavy desalinating activity contributing to increased salinity.21


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There are generally two approaches to undertake when trying to eliminate pollution due to EGUs, the first of which is to reduce the amount of pollutants released into the environment, for example, by applying different pollution control technologies.22-26 The second approach is to eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the first place by replacing them with clean renewable sources such as wind or solar energy. The second option would be the most promising one if not for the fossil fuel infrastructure that has long been adopted. This is validated by the $244 billion invested in renewable energy in 2012, an increase of 8% in comparison to that invested in 2010 worldwide.27 To tackle the widespread set of environmental problems caused by EGUs, this study aims to assess the base case scenario prior to the establishment of an integrated model that can enhance the sustainability of the electric power and water system. Data regarding the electricity generation, water production, and fuel consumption (with the associated costs) of all power plants in Kuwait are gathered and thoroughly investigated to determine the potential improvements in reducing the total fuel cost and environmental impacts. Since the few studies in the literature that focused on the joint analysis of electricity and water generation in Kuwait are outdated, this paper provides opportunities to researchers to target and improve different aspects of the performance of power and water generation plants with up to date insights into the electrical power system profile in Kuwait.


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MATERIALS AND METHODS Thermoelectric power systems consume fossil fuel to produce thermal energy, which is used to generate electricity via a variety of methods. The State of Kuwait relies on three types of power production systems, namely, gas turbines, steam turbines, and the relatively newly installed combined cycle systems.1 Currently, thermal steam turbines, along with thermal gas turbines (accounting for 31.3% of the total installed capacity), are installed in most power stations to produce electricity to meet the demand at peak load. The installed capacities of thermal steam turbines and thermal gas turbines are 10762 and 4957 MW, respectively, of which a combined 2896.5 MW runs on the combined cycle system. The capacities of each electricity generation unit range from 120 MW to 300 MW for thermal steam turbines and 18 MW to 220 MW for thermal gas turbines. The details of the capacity division between power plants can be found in in the supporting information (Table S1). Due to the scarcity of water resources in Kuwait, the MEW relies on the multistage flash (MSF) evaporation method to purify sea water of salt and produce fresh water by employing state-of-the-art technology. Since the construction of the first facility during the 1950s, the installed capacity has increased from ~2 to 528.1 MIG (million imperial gallons) per day as of 2014. The multistage flash units comprise approximately 24-26 stages (depending on the design of the desalination plant), and their capacities range from 5-15 MIG per day for each unit. The details pertaining to desalination plants in Kuwait can be found in Table S2. Yearly as well as monthly data for electricity and water production and fuel consumption for 2014 were obtained from the Statistics Department and Information Center of the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) of Kuwait. Moreover, daily data were obtained from spreadsheets that are generated by the MEW on a yearly basis. These spreadsheets provided data for fuel


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specifications as well. Furthermore, the hourly electricity production rates, which were obtained from the Kuwait National Command Center (KNCC), were needed to fully understand and model the electricity and water production systems. The KNCC is responsible for allocating electricity needs throughout the State of Kuwait and controls Kuwait’s electrical network. The only issue with the hourly rates is that the KNCC rounds them off to the nearest tenth for every hour. Thus, inaccuracies may arise between the total electricity production reported by the KNCC and the power plants themselves. This requires some kind of normalization to generate a more accurate representation of the hourly rates, which was done in this study. The generation of the hourly rates went as follows. First, each hourly rate was divided by the daily total generated electricity per the KNCC values to get hourly factors of electricity production. These factors were then multiplied by the daily totals for electricity generation reported by the power stations. This process was repeated for each hourly value at each power station and unit. Furthermore, since only the hourly rates of gross electricity generation were obtained, the same factors were multiplied by the water production totals reported by each power station and thus the hourly water rates were obtained. This is justified by the fact that the electricity and water production systems in Kuwait are closely coupled. These factors were then multiplied by the fuel consumption totals to yield the hourly fuel consumption rates. In this paper, the day with the highest electricity generation for each season was chosen as representative for the season and illustrated in the results section. The reason behind this choice was to better explore the generation limits regarding what a worst case (peak) condition would look like. The summer season consists of June, July, and August. Autumn consists of September, October, and November. Winter consists of December, January, and February. Finally, spring consists of March, April, and May. Summer, autumn, winter, and spring hourly rates are


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represented by the 2nd of July, 8th of September, 15th of December, and 31st of May, respectively. The calorific values corresponding to the days representative of each season were obtained from the Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), which is the fuel provider, and are provided in Table S3. All the time-intensive calculations were performed using a C++ code to easily handle the hourly data for 2014. The Qt Creator IDE (integrated development environment) was used along with some libraries to make the textual data easier to handle. The Qt Creator version was 4.0.3, which ran on a C++ compiler from the GNU Compiler Collection on Linux and FreeBSD.28 The following sections present the data used for the general assessment of electricity and water generation profiles, followed by the fuel consumption, and finally an analysis of the overall monthly fuel consumption of the State of Kuwait against the fuel prices between 2010 and 2015. Monthly fuel consumption and prices were reported based on the data provided by the KOC to the MEW for the respective years. The objective here is to demonstrate whether or not the fuel allocation methodology depends on the fuel prices. Consequently, the conclusions will help 1) in understanding the environmental impact of electricity generation in Kuwait, 2) in further developing a base case scenario for the dispersion of air pollutants, and 3) to highlight any risks associated with the current levels as part of future work. ELECTRICITY AND WATER GENERATION PROFILE The operating data of the seven power plants in Kuwait were obtained from the Statistics Department and Information Center of the Ministry of Electricity and Water (MEW) of Kuwait.1 The data include all electrical energy generation and water production. Data regarding fuel consumption, specifications and prices in Kuwait were obtained from the fuel provider (KOC). In this section, all of the data regarding the electric power systems in Kuwait was collected,


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filtered and analyzed to effectively study the electricity and water generation profiles and the relationship between them. An energy flow diagram for 2014 (shown in Figure 1) was compiled based on the data from the MEW and various other sources in the literature.29,30 The total energy produced by Kuwait’s power plants in 2014 was 736 PJ. Kuwait relied primarily on natural gas for power production in 2014, producing as much as 366 PJ from natural gas (approximately 50%), followed by heavy fuel oil (223 PJ). It is worth noting that natural gas is the only type of fuel consumed by all power stations. The distribution of power production rates shows that the Az-Zour South power plant was the highest producer of electricity, contributing 262 PJ of the total 736 PJ. The Sabiya power plant came in a close second, contributing 212 PJ. The Shuwaikh power plant relies solely on natural gas and produced a mere 8 PJ in 2014, producing the lowest amount of electricity among all power plants. The amount of electricity employed for residential use (approximately 102 PJ) was higher than that employed for commercial use (53 PJ). The rest of the 736 PJ of electricity produced was lost to waste heat, with only a small amount (approximately 80 PJ) recaptured for water production and desalination.


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of freshwater consumption in 2014, demonstrated by the maximum and minimum daily consumption amounts for each month throughout the year. It is worth noting that fresh water includes distilled water, brackish water, and water produced via reverse osmosis. Gross fresh water consumption for 2014 stood at around 145000 MIG which is around a 3.2% increase compared to 2013 consumption levels. This is the highest consumption growth rate year-on-year in six years prior to 2014. The increased consumption was the reason that year of 2014 was one of the very few years where total annual consumption was higher than total annual production. Gross production rates for 2014 stood at 143000 MIG. Whereas the prior years had a surplus in production amounting to around 775, 535 and 231 MIG for 2013, 2012 and 2011 respectively. The excess water produced is stored in water storage facilities in route to residential areas for consumption. Accordingly, all stored water is eventually consumed. The higher consumption effect manifested itself in the form of the reduced available water in storage for April where the amount of stored water dropped dramatically to ~80% of the maximum capacity of water storage. This is a critical level for the MEW and so they try to operate more gas turbines instead of co-generation units to help produce more water without having to produce excess electricity. The result of which is the increased consumption of natural gas and gas oil in 2014 in addition to other causes as well to be discussed in the respective section.


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per day; with an installed capacity of 110.4 MIG per day, this represents approximately 87% of the installed capacity. The Sabiya desalination plant came in second in terms of usage, with an average daily rate of gross production of 83.84 MIG per day, i.e., 84% of the installed capacity. In third place was the Doha East desalination plant, the average daily rate of gross production of which (32.44 MIG per day) was 77% of the installed capacity (42 MIG per day). Strangely enough, the Az-Zour South plant, which is the largest desalination plant in Kuwait (based on the installed capacity), employed 76% of its installed capacity. Similarly, it was found that 30%, 68%, and 65% of the installed capacity of the Shuaiba North, Shuaiba South, and Shuwaikh desalination plants was employed, respectively, according to the same procedure. The hourly gross water production rates show a somewhat similar trend to that of the hourly gross electricity production rates, as shown in Figure 7. During summer, autumn, and spring, the gross production rates have only one maximum and one minimum (at 14:30 and 06:00, respectively). Both coincide with the electricity production peaks. Similarly, during winter, 2 maxima and a minimum are observed (at 11:30, 18:00, and 3:00, respectively). Note that the difference between the winter peak and summer peak was no more than ~25%, unlike that of the electricity production rates, which was ~50%. This highlights the problem Kuwait faces, i.e., the excessive production of water during the summer season only to meet the electricity demand and poor water management infrastructure or policies.


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also serve as a significant revenue source. It would also inevitably eliminate the need for large storage facilities. This grid would allow GCC countries to trade electricity and water not only with one another but, in the long run, possibly with neighboring countries.31 Looking beyond the GCC area, this grid may enable opening up a new market between GCC countries and neighboring territories. A grid that extends to Europe, for example, which has a much more developed renewable energy infrastructure, would help the GCC achieve a greener economy. There are many opportunities that could be seized by establishing this interconnected grid that could greatly help in achieving a sustainable energy economy and a more sustainable level of power and water consumption and production. Other water management options include groundwater recharge, which has been shown to have a positive impact on Kuwait’s potentiometric surfaces which could otherwise be damaged by excessive withdrawal rates and is somewhat already employed by the 4276 MIG of groundwater storage facilities. 32-33 Thus, allowing MEW to benefit off the groundwater resources in Kuwait and produce larger rates of brackish water and at the same time provide a viable water management option instead of the massive storage infrastructure. Brackish water can be used for blending with desalinated fresh water to obtain potable water or can be desalinated using reverse osmosis units which are known to consume a much lower rate of energy compared to MSF technologies. 34 Apart from consuming less energy, reverse osmosis units would also eliminate the need of operating desalination units simultaneously with power production units (cogeneration turbines) and has been suggested as a viable water management option. 33 FUEL CONSUMPTION PROFILE Fuel specifications


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The State of Kuwait relies on four types of fuel to generate electricity, namely, natural gas, gas oil, crude oil, and heavy fuel oil, the characteristics of which differ greatly. The average chemical as well as physical properties of the fuels used in Kuwait’s power stations can be found in the supporting information (Table S4) for the year of 2014. There are two types of natural gas consumed for electricity generation in Kuwait. Highpressure natural gas is used by all of Kuwait’s power stations, excluding the Sabiya power station, which uses low-pressure natural gas for power production purposes. Low-pressure gas is generally higher in sulfur and nitrogen content and has a higher average calorific value and lower density. For liquid fuels (HFO, CO and GO), the properties have the highest values for HFO and the lowest values for GO. It has been found that the sulfur content of heavy fuel oil (3.78%) is much larger than that of gas oil (0.171%); yet, heavy fuel oil represents the bulk of fuel consumed for power generation in Kuwait, as explained in the following sections. Fuel consumption Figure 9 (a to d) shows the monthly consumption in terms of the daily maximum and minimum consumption for each month for all types of fuel at all stations during 2014.


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values occur in different months. The highest overall maximum (1300000 MSCF) and minimum (1100000 MSCF) occurred in October and September, respectively. In contrast, the maximum monthly consumption of gas oil occurred in August at the Sabiya station. Figure 9 (b) shows the maximum and minimum daily gas oil consumption on a monthly basis. The results show a wide margin between the maximum and minimum amounts of daily consumption. This gap narrows during the summer season, as consumption is at its peak and zero gas oil consumption rates are intolerable. The maximum daily gas oil consumption peaks during the summer season, specifically in August, reaching 78400 bbl. The results also show that only three stations out of the seven power plants in Kuwait consumed crude oil. The largest was the Az-Zour power plant, with peak consumption (2.2 million barrels) occurring in July. Figure 9 (c) shows that there was no consumption of crude oil by any of the power plants during the months of April, November and December, except for a small amount (84000 bbl of crude oil) consumed by Doha West in December. This is due to the abundance of heavy fuel oil during that period. In a manner which is somewhat similar to that of daily gas oil consumption, the daily crude oil consumption rates frequently reach zero on monthly basis, as shown in Figure 9 (c). The maximum daily crude oil consumption occurred in July (107000 bbl), whereas the minimum daily consumption occurred in June (79000 bbl). For heavy fuel oil, a somewhat different trend is observed. Four out of the seven power stations in Kuwait employ the use of heavy fuel oil to produce energy. The result is an overall trend reflecting a consumption that peaks during the month of April at maximum value of 194000 bbl as shown in Figure 9 (d). This trend is not similar to what is observed for crude oil, where the stations that do not consume heavy fuel oil during the summer are the largest


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consumers of crude oil during the same period and vice versa. Hence, this illustrates that during the summer season, those stations rely wholly on crude oil for electricity generation. Regarding the hourly fuel consumption rates, they display a similar trend, from a peak timing point of view, to that of the hourly rates previously illustrated. What is more interesting, however, is the dominant type of fuel employed at power stations on a seasonal basis, as shown in Figure 10. Two types of fuel have lower consumption rates for the winter season compared to other seasons: gas oil and crude oil. Accordingly, power stations rely on gas oil and crude oil for electricity generation only during peak times. This is mainly because of two reasons: First is the fact that gas oil is not readily produced by refineries in Kuwait in quantities that are suitable for power generation as a base load. Second, crude oil is better off being exported than used for power generation purposes, as Kuwait is legally bound by international contracts related to crude oil supply. Furthermore, natural gas consumption has a more variable consumption rate on a seasonal basis than does heavy fuel oil consumption, being higher during summer and autumn (the hot seasons) and lower during winter and spring (the cold seasons).


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Electric Power System Profile in Kuwait: Electricity and Water

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