Peak-shaving stations and what they do for a city network
Valve maintenance, network repair, winter peaks — a peak-shaving station turns stored gas into deliverable gas.
A peak-shaving station gives a city gas system a backup path when supply is tight, the network is under repair or winter demand peaks: stored LNG is vaporised and fed into the city network, to industrial users or to a filling station's gas line. Because LNG stores a large quantity and can be regasified on demand, most cities include one in their base scheme.
LNG is favoured for being clean, efficient, reliable, easy to transport and broad in application, and it has a real role in green low-carbon strategy, energy-mix optimisation and smoothing the winter gas peak-to-trough difference.
A peak-shaving station typically comprises vaporisers in the loading area, storage tanks and tank pressurisation vaporisers, the main ambient-air vaporiser that regasifies the LNG, water-bath reheaters for low ambient temperatures, and the regulating, metering and venting systems.
Operation is straightforward: the tank holds its level in normal times; when the network tightens, unloading pressurisation and vaporisation start, and gas is fed at the pressure and flow the network needs. In cold weather the ambient-air vaporiser derates and the water-bath reheater makes up the heat, keeping the delivered gas temperature above what the network requires.
Written by the Tairan engineering team from project records and standard documents. Please cite the source when quoting.