This report details four lessons learnt across the technical and construction/logistics categories for the project.
Report extract
Lesson Learnt 1: Understanding of load requirements
Category: Technical
Beam pump electrical loads are cyclic with an increase in power to drive the pump’s counterweight up before a reduction in load during the down-stroke. This requires electrical design and sizing to allow for both peak demand and cyclic loads.
In addition, oil reservoir composition varies over time with water entering the produced reservoir. Water is denser than oil and hence pump load will increase through production life of the well.
Following the deployment of the first 6 solar and battery units, load variation through reservoir change was reviewed in detail, resulting in larger design allowances added to solar and battery sizing.
Lesson Learnt 2: Site layout considerations
Category: Technical
All installations were constrained to the existing pre-disturbed lease area with some sites requiring limited civil works to level sites. This led to solar panels being orientated to the lease orientation rather than the most optimum solar orientation. As such, it is estimated solar performance has suffered an approximate 3-4% efficiency loss.
All selected sites for the solar and battery installation were outside of potential flood zones though battery containers have been elevated as a precautionary measure. Please refer Photo 1 below as an example layout.