FLOATING POWER GENERATION SYSTEM

摘要

A system for using natural gas to safely provide large amounts (at least 30 megawatts) of electricity to consumers. The system includes a floating generating vessel (110) that lies offshore and carries one or more turbine-generator sets (114, 116) that use natural gas as fuel and whose electricity output is delivered though a power line (120) that extends at least partially in the sea to a consumer. One consumer is a process vessel (112) that processes natural gas and that has transfer facilities (68) that transfer liquified gas to or from a tanker (106) that holds over 10,000 tons of liquified gas. Some of the gas is transferred from the process vessel through a conduit (136) in the sea to the generating vessel (110) to provide fuel. Another consumer is an onshore facility (52). The generating and process vessels (110, 112) are widely separated (e.g. at least 0.2 kilometer) to protect personnel in the event of a gas explosion or fire. The separate generating and process vessels enable rapid acquisition of the vessels, which is especially useful to quickly supply large quantities of electricity in newly developed areas.