This electric motor-driven compressor, when compared to gas turbine-driven units, is expected to reduce operation costs and maintenance requirements, increase efficiency, and provide quieter operation. Electric-motor drives were installed earlier this year for Transwestern Pipeline at its Bloomfield and Bisti, N.M., compressor stations.
Enron unit Transwestern Pipeline, Houston, has installed electric motor-driven compressors at two sites near Farmington, N.M., to increase pipeline throughput capacity.
Enron Engineering & Construction Co., Houston, handled the installations. Cegelec Automation, Pittsburgh, supplied the drive systems for both locations.
What was done
The contract called for addition of one 7,700 hp (4.16 kv) unit at Bloomfield and an initial 11,000 hp (6.6 kv) unit at Bisti, both with synchronous load-commutated inverter (LCI) variable-speed drives.
The drive systems included three winding-input isolation transformers and twelve pulse LCI drives with dc link choke-smoothing reactor and synchronous motor.
Because both system-power factor and harmonic distortion were important, says Cegelec, both systems included a power-system harmonic and power-factor study, along with power-factor correction banks for each drive system.
The drive systems were manufactured and tested at Cegelec Automation's Pittsburgh plant.
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