Renewable Energy Integration and Emission Reduction in an Oil and Gas Power Plant

Decarbonizing industrial energy consumption is critical for global sustainability. This study evaluates renewable energy alternatives to replace fossil-fuel power generation at an oil and gas facility in Khurais, KSA. A comparative thermodynamic and economic assessment was performed between a photovoltaic (PV) array and a parabolic trough collector (PTC) integrated with a Brayton cycle (BC) and a bottoming organic Rankine cycle (RC). The PTC-BC-RC model includes multi-generation capabilities for electricity, process hot water, and hydrogen via a PEM electrolyzer. The baseline PTC-BC-RC system generates up to 118.1 MW with a maximum thermal efficiency of 36.57%. The PEM electrolyzer utilizes 2% of the generated power to produce hydrogen at 0.0152 kg/s. Economically, the recuperated CSP system offsets its higher initial capital costs through diverse revenue streams (power, heat, and hydrogen), achieving a payback period of 5.13 years, significantly outperforming the PV system’s 6.80 years. Both configurations mitigate annual emissions by 747,000 tons of CO 2 , 103.4 tons of NO x , and 3.72 tons of SO 2 . Despite regional limitations such as dust and water scarcity, the multi-generation PTC-BC-RC system proves economically and thermodynamically superior to the standalone PV system, offering a highly effective decarbonization strategy for industrial facilities in arid, high-irradiance zones.