Trigenerative solution for natural gas compressor stations: A north Italian test case

Natural Gas (NG) is constantly increasing its importance and widening its penetration in the world energy mix, so that the topic of its reliable and efficient transportation represents an enduring challenge of utmost importance. Within this framework, the design and operation of NG compression stations is a key aspect, significantly influencing the operation expenses of gas transport companies. Such plants are characterized by an increasing level of complexity both for the choice of the technology to adopt for gas compression and for the plant layout and integration, facing a combination of diverse energy demands including electric power, thermal and cooling demands. The present study is developed mining the data provided by the Italian natural gas infrastructure company, Snam Rete Gas, for a key compression station in the North-East of Italy. A feasibility study to increase the capacity of the compressor station has been carried out and an innovative trigenerative application has been proposed to fulfill the overall plant energy requirements, reducing primary energy needs by nearly 30%. Thanks to the outcome of the study, such trigenerative solution has been deployed by Snam Rete Gas.