Design and Performance Analysis of an Oil Pump Powered by Solar for a Remote Site in Nigeria

Iqbal, Tariq and Chidolue, Onyinyechukwu (2023) Design and Performance Analysis of an Oil Pump Powered by Solar for a Remote Site in Nigeria. European Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science, 7 (1). pp. 62-69. ISSN 2736-5751

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Abstract

Oil companies typically abandon stripper wells with production rates below 15 barrels per day because the production and maintenance cost exceed the pumping rate. Oil spillage is the primary cause of low production rates; an example of such failure is the Oloibiri oil well in Nigeria. During the peak of operation, the flow rate was 5,100 barrels per day in 1960 and was abandoned due to the declining production rate. The Oloibiri oil site has 18 drilled wells, and only the oil well 17 can be classified as stripper well. Because Nigeria has high solar irradiance and insolation, a proper PV system sizing for a solar-powered pump that should lift oil from a depth of 3800 metres at a flow rate of 15 barrels per day is evaluated for two different running times. In that way, the solar-powered pump will be used to solve the ongoing issue of stripper oil wells by curbing oil spillage from the oil wells abandoned by these production companies and rendering a low-cost pumping system. This paper evaluates the pump performance and completes the system design. It compares the system design to the PVsyst and HOMER sizing.

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