Jordan Hanson, Control Solutions
Unico
Hy-Bon/EDI
One of the largest lease operating expenses is electrical cost. Only a small portion of electrical cost is value-added conversion of electricity to fluid lifting power. The rest is lost to downhole friction, fluid flow friction, pumping unit, and electrical to mechanical power conversion inefficiencies. Overall “line to fluid” system efficiency will typically range from 20% to 40%. Some cases will be as low as 10%.
Some of those energy losses are inevitable. Some can be reduced through improved operation and controls. This paper will present power studies of various control schemes on actual wells, highlighting the best solutions for reducing power consumption.
The study will examine: line starters with timers, line starters with pump off controllers, pump off controllers with variable speed drives and advanced embedded controllers. Electrical average voltage(V), power factor, maximum current(A), average current(A), total apparent power(KVA), total reactive power(KVAR) and total real power(KW) will be show for each variation. Apparent costs and ROI of implementing and/or changing to a new control system will be presented.