(616f) Energy Diversification in the Middle East: How to Double a Region's Energy Resources

Energy Diversification in the Middle
East: How to double a Region's Energy Resources

Massimiliano
Kolbe^a, Zohreh Ravaghi-Ardebili*^b

^a Baker Engineering and Risk Consultants,
Inc.,11011 Richmond Avenue, Suite 700, Houston, Texas

^b Politecnico di Milano, Dipartimento di
Chimica, Materiali e Ingegneria Chimica,?Giulio Natta?, Piazza Leonardo da
Vinci 32, 20133, Milano, Italy

*zohreh.ravaghi@mail.polimi.it,
mkolbe@bakerrisk.com

Due to the favorable climatic conditions, the Middle East
is considered as a one of the best candidates for development and production of
renewable (particularly solar) resources. It is estimated that during 80% of
the year, these regions are exposed to tremendous quantities of solar
radiation. In addition, the majority of these regions are desolate, unusable lands
where many of the world's largest oil and gas reserves can be found beneath
them. Oil and gas has enriched the Middle Eastern economies for decades and provided
a quick path to wealth and development. However, not all Middle Eastern
countries have this natural abundance of oil and gas, nor does this resource
exist equally everywhere in the regions which do have this abundance.
Therefore, considerations must be made in the management of this nonrenewable energy
source in tandem with the ever present renewable solar energy source in such a
way so as to balance the energy production and consumption. In so doing we can
protect, strengthen and grow the economics of the region's oil and gas industries
which in many cases are by far the largest source of income for many Middle
Eastern nations.

Qatar
and Saudi Arabia possess vast fields of natural gas; however it is important to
trade and export LNG in order to sustain the economies of these regions. Equally
as important, the natural gas can be fractionated to produce NGL components for
petrochemical feedstock which are later used in the production of polymers. These
countries currently do not fully benefit from other durable sources of income (such
as: agricultural, manufactured goods, food processing, etc) in order to balance
and sustain the national cash flows. Similarly, Kuwait, Oman and the United
Arab Emirates are richer in crude oil resources and cannot benefit as much from
petrochemical feedstock from natural gas. Although, Saudi Arabia is plentiful
in oil and gas, the produced oil is practically sustaining the economy, and a
large portion of the produced gas is driven into the generation of power to supply
facilities, buildings and desalination plants. Accordingly, Bahrain and Yemen
are not as rich in oil and gas as other countries in this region and are
therefore strongly dependent in foreign energy supply for their sustainability.

Fortunately
all of these regions are extremely rich in sunlight (and heat). Conversely
nearly all of these countries are extremely poor in fresh water resources.
Ergo, it is necessary to generate power to not just produce the electricity but
to run desalination plants to purify salt water into potable water as well as
to run the next highest energy consumption devices; air conditioning and
chilling systems. Potable water production from desalination and air conditioning/chilling
are vital requirements for such climates and geographies given their need and
scarcity. Hence, the produced oil and gas which would practically be the main
true source of income is being used as a commodity as well as being used to
sustain the power production and infrastructure of the country. Oil and gas are
non-renewable and finite, fresh water is already a scarcity in these regions;
harnessing solar power and developing this technology as part of the
infrastructure to the Middle Eastern region is a vital and logical next step in
the quest for sustainability and strengthening the region's economies.

Solar
radiation at its peak is above 8000 W-h/m² in Kuwait alone and can
be mentioned as being the largest potential for solar power harnessing in this
region and consequently benefiting from common solar technologies for power
generation such as photovoltaic and concentrated solar power (CSP) plants taking
into consideration the available geographic surface area and the need to
generate the power without using the only real sellable commodity; crude oil. The
UAE is considered as a second potential for solar radiation availability among
the other six countries in the region with an average of 7000 W-h/m²;
considering the large modern cities, commercial and industrial facilities harnessing
solar power would significantly decrease the national consumption oil and gas
which could otherwise be sold internationally. Though the Middle East is considering
ramping up the installation of CSP plants this goal will be a long term
achievement, on the other hand use photovoltaic panels to capture solar energy for
domestic, industrial and commercial buildings is completely tangible in the
short term.

Electricity
is the appealing and clean form of the power, the efforts to produce it via a technology
using renewable and abundant resource would be even more promising. Inasmuch, the
idea to produce power for commercial buildings and facilities via photovoltaic solar
panels should be strongly considered. Photovoltaic cells in the panels which
convert the photons (light) to voltage (electricity); power produced from these
panels is in the form of direct current and by means of converters it is then
converted to alternating current which is the most applicable form of energy in
households and buildings. This procedure of generating the power would be
managed individually by the building's owners, industrial administrators and for
commercial constructers to establish, collect and provide the power units and
their installation along with the tie in to the electrical grid system.

Practically
speaking, the path to creating simple yet substantial power sources using
photovoltaic solar panels is far more obtainable than once thought due to
increased size of cities, industrial facilities and use of automobiles. If we
simply considered these public and industrial facilities including the
petrochemical sites, malls and hotels typically all hold a large area nearby as
parking lots (public car parks) all typically equipped with awnings and shading
structures with strong metal frames (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1. Public
building making use of the steel shade parking covers (seen in the red square)

As it
can be seen from the typical car park above, these areas are generally very
large solid structures made with steel framing and covered with solid material oriented
for the purpose of protecting the cars from the sun's radiation. By making use
of these strong structures (clearly capable of holding significant loads) and
installing photovoltaic solar panels over them, large gathering surfaces can be
created. The example above in fact can supply over 1,800 m2 of surface area,
with an average solar panel efficiency of 170 W/m2, this particular car park
could generate over 300 kW of electrical power. The battery storage or even in
some cases grid connections might be easily located in the facility to convert
the collected energy and distribute to the nearby building. More importantly in
the case of a typical refinery or petrochemical facility, the car parks are
much bigger and could potentially produce over 2.5 MW of power with the simple
installation of photovoltaic solar panels. Thus, the solar panel collection
system would potentially provide all the required lighting or air conditioning
for these buildings. It is worth noting that the energy management would not
suffer from the logistics of such a system since it is a main part of the
energy management.

By prearranged
backgrounds, the authors put efforts to propose and plan applicable solutions
for the management of energy which could ultimately increase national cash flows
going into the country by using photovoltaic solar collecting systems all over
cities and in large petrochemical sites throughout Middle East. The discussed
and proposed solutions would be provided with detailed calculations for required
electrical energy demands, production and consumption, price balances and power
generation management to indirectly assist the growth and promote stability in
the oil and gas market. Such a movement for using photovoltaic panels or CSP
plants could potentially increase the GDP of a typical Middle Eastern country, solve
environmental issues and consequently avoid the local use of natural gas to run
power plants, petrochemical sites and desalination plants and to divert local high
consumption of oil and gas for power generation to the market for sale outside
the country and increase cash flows into the country.

In
addition, a comparison of energy sources and power generation will be made with
the highest energy consumers of the world; USA, China and EU, their energy
prices and GDPs and how it relates to their consumption and production of
energy. The Middle Eastern countries are generally reliant on oil and gas for
their economies and have less consideration of supplementary energy sources.
The only approach could be implemented with the integration of energy
management which is almost a function of culture and background of this region.
Considering the large capital currently produced from the sale of oil and gas
from these regions, the available technologies in solar energy generation and
the largely available solar radiation in these regions, there is very little
risk and high reward in the this solution for increased energy management efficiency.