The Pine Bend refinery in Minnesota added a 45-MW solar energy array to help the power’s provide of electrical energy, reaping the advantages of diminished prices, decrease emissions, and extra.
House owners of business and industrial services are at all times on the lookout for methods to enhance competitiveness. For a lot of corporations, meaning putting in know-how to make their websites extra energy-efficient.
The Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota, owned and operated by Kansas-based Flint Hills Assets (FHR), is taken into account among the many most energy-efficient refineries within the U.S., due to innovation and modernization that helps the power’s manufacturing of transportation fuels which are delivered all through the Midwest. Pine Bend is partly energized by a 45-MW solar energy plant, the biggest of its form at a U.S. refinery.
The photo voltaic photovoltaic (PV) plant has 120,000 panels overlaying about 200 acres of a 350-acre web site adjoining to the refinery, which is positioned 17 miles southeast of Minneapolis. DEPCOM Energy, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, designed, procured, and constructed the $75 million PV plant in 2023, connecting the system on to the refinery to decrease vitality prices, enhance vitality effectivity, and cut back emissions. The photo voltaic array has an estimated annual manufacturing capability of about 92,000 MWh.
Officers say the venture, which was commissioned in November of final 12 months, is probably going the biggest “direct use of solar energy” within the U.S., because it gives “roughly 30% of the refinery’s 135-MW energy wants throughout optimum situations.” The photo voltaic advanced gives energy through the day when vitality prices are sometimes the most costly.
“That is a rare venture and thrilling alternative to exhibit how photo voltaic may be seamlessly built-in into a big industrial facility with a excessive, constant energy demand, reliably and at a decrease price than standard, retail energy,” stated Justin Bloch, DEPCOM Energy’s president of Photo voltaic. “You don’t usually see utility-scale initiatives for a single facility and whereas this can be the primary venture of its form at this scale, it gained’t be the final. Distributed photo voltaic technology is proving to be a aggressive and dependable supply of energy for a lot of energy-intensive industries.”
The Flint Hills Assets Pine Bend refinery produces transportation fuels, together with most of Minnesota’s gasoline, diesel gasoline, and jet gasoline, in addition to different merchandise similar to propane and asphalt. The power has a refining capability of 375,000 barrels per day.
Pine Bend is a mannequin instance of an industrial facility innovating to enhance its competitiveness whereas additionally bettering its environmental efficiency, which is among the many causes it’s been chosen by POWER to obtain its 2024 Industrial & Industrial Era Award.
Photo voltaic and CHP Offering Energy
Officers with Flint Hills and DEPCOM stated the brand new photo voltaic set up (Determine 1) now serves as FHR Pine Bend’s second supply of onsite energy technology, after completion of the location’s mixed warmth and energy (CHP) system in 2019. The CHP plant provides the refinery with about 50 MW of electrical energy, or roughly 40% of the 135-MW load required to energy day by day operations. The photo voltaic and CHP programs mixed meet about 70% of Flint Hills Assets’ energy wants, “making the Pine Bend refinery considered one of America’s most energy-efficient gasoline producers,” in keeping with these acquainted with the venture.
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1. The 45-MW solar energy array at Flint Hills Assets’ Pine Bend web site in Rosemount, Minnesota, covers about 200 acres of a 350-acre web site adjoining to the refinery. The $75 million venture options 120,000 photo voltaic panels. The photo voltaic plant gives about 30% of the refinery’s energy wants throughout optimum situations. Courtesy: Flint Hills Assets |
“That is DEPCOM’s first important ‘behind-the-meter’ venture the place we designed and constructed a big photo voltaic advanced to energy a single facility, on this case an oil refinery. And never simply any oil refinery, however a refinery that’s answerable for producing the overwhelming majority of the fuels the individuals of Minnesota depend upon on daily basis, a spot the place reliability actually issues,” stated Darrell Birck, DEPCOM’s senior vp of Operations. “We’re seeing extra of a majority of these initiatives being proposed throughout the U.S., however it’s thrilling to have the ability to say we had been among the many first to do something like this at this scale. We’re proving that photo voltaic is a dependable, cost-competitive, emission-free supply of energy.”
The CHP and solar energy programs have helped Pine Bend enhance its vitality effectivity by 10% over the previous 5 years, placing it into the highest quartile of all U.S. refineries. The refinery has earned the U.S. Environmental Safety Company’s ENERGY STAR certification for the previous 5 years.
Development of the venture started in November 2022. The modules for the photo voltaic array had been provided by HT-SAAE, whose modules are recognized for his or her excessive energy and excessive reliability. Inverters for the venture got here from Ingeteam, a Spanish group that works in 15 nations and has greater than 80 years of expertise within the electrical energy sector.
GameChange Photo voltaic, headquartered in Norwalk, Connecticut, offered the racking for the system. The corporate has offered greater than 30 GW of its fixed-tilt racking and tracker gear, and earlier this 12 months introduced an enlargement of its U.S. manufacturing. The corporate has a community of greater than 30 manufacturing areas throughout 16 states.
Lowering Emissions
“Pine Bend is already one of the crucial environment friendly refineries within the nation, however we’re at all times on the lookout for methods to constantly remodel our enterprise,” stated Jake Reint, Flint Hills’ vp of public affairs. “As one of many largest-of-its-kind photo voltaic installations, this venture is a daring and thrilling alternative to decrease vitality prices, enhance our vitality effectivity, and cut back emissions.”
The refinery since 2010 additionally has diminished its conventional standards emissions by about 70%, and has diminished greenhouse gases about 10% relative to manufacturing. Different latest enhancements on the web site embrace the addition of two modernized cooling towers, which cut back vitality consumption, and leveraging ammonium thiosulfate know-how, which creates fertilizer whereas producing ultra-low-sulfur gasoline to cut back car emissions.
Pine Bend, with about 1,000 full-time employees, is among the largest employers in Dakota County. Officers stated the refinery straight and not directly helps 3,400 jobs in Minnesota.
Habitat Administration
“Steady enchancment is foundational to who we’re as an organization,” stated Reint. “This venture is a good instance of how we always evolve and discover higher methods to supply fuels and different merchandise individuals want and use on daily basis.”
The Pine Bend PV system is taken into account the biggest such set up for a single consumer within the U.S. Together with offering energy for the refinery’s operations, it additionally helps the technique of collocating technology at a big energy-consuming web site. This helps keep away from line loss, or electrical energy that may be misplaced as it’s being delivered alongside the transmission system serving the advanced.
“This largest-of-its form photo voltaic set up helps us enhance our competitiveness by decreasing our vitality prices and bettering our vitality effectivity, making us one of the crucial energy-efficient refineries within the nation,” stated Geoff Glasrud, vp and manufacturing supervisor for Flint Hills Assets. “Photo voltaic additionally helps us additional cut back emissions related to producing the fuels and different important merchandise we make that individuals throughout the state and the Higher Midwest depend on on daily basis. We’re proud to be the primary refinery and largest manufacturing facility to make the most of photo voltaic at this scale.”
“With this venture we’re bettering our means to offer the gasoline individuals want in a approach that can enable us to be extra aggressive at present and effectively into the longer term,” stated Jeff Ramsey, president and CEO of Flint Hills Assets. “Our refinery operations are among the many finest on this planet, and we proceed to innovate and discover new and higher methods to supply and ship the gasoline and different petroleum-derived merchandise that stay important to the economic system and fashionable life.”
—Darrell Proctor is senior editor for POWER (@POWERmagazine).
