Flint Hills Resources to build solar farm to help power Corpus Christi refinery operations
Flint Hills Resources has announced it will be building its second company-owned solar installation to help power its U.S. refinery operations.
The new solar installation will provide electricity to the company’s Corpus Christi West refinery, which produces jet fuel, ultra-low sulfur diesel and gasoline, in addition to the chemical-building blocks used in thousands of everyday products.
The project is believed to be the second largest utility scale solar complex in the Corpus Christi area and the first solar project in Texas to provide onsite, self-generated electricity directly to an oil refinery. Under optimal conditions, the solar installation is expected to satisfy nearly one third of the refinery’s power needs.
“We continue to improve our refinery operations and make progress toward our vision of being the best refining company in the industry,” said Jeff Ramsey, President and CEO of Flint Hills Resources. “We are proving that large-scale solar can be successfully integrated into large, complex industrial facilities, helping to lower costs while maintaining reliability and improving our environmental performance.”
When complete, the 27-megawatt (MW) solar installation will include approximately 56,700 panels and is expected to help lower annual energy costs, improve energy efficiency, and reduce grid emissions. The project will be located on approximately 100 acres of the company’s property across the west refinery complex off of Interstate Highway 37 in Corpus Christi, Texas.
The facility’s expected solar energy production is enough electricity to power more than 5,100 homes per year and has a peak capacity of roughly 28% of the refinery’s power needs. The estimated cost of this project is $53 MM. Scottsdale, Arizona-based DEPCOM Power has been selected as the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the project. Both Flint Hills Resources and DEPCOM are subsidiaries of Koch Companies, LLC.
“This is an uncommon project and exciting opportunity to integrate solar directly into a large refinery complex, reliably and at a lower cost than conventional, retail power,” said John Schroeder, DEPCOM’s Executive Vice President of Distributed Energy. “You don’t often see utility-scale projects for a single facility and while this may be among the first projects of its kind at this scale in Texas, it won’t be the last. Distributed solar generation is proving to be a competitive and reliable source of power for many energy-intensive industries.”
DEPCOM recently completed construction of a similar solar project at Flint Hills Resources’ Pine Bend refinery in Rosemount, Minnesota. The Pine Bend 45-MW solar project was the largest of its kind in the U.S.
The Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi solar installation will be the refinery’s second source of onsite power generation. The refinery also operates a combined heat and power (CHP) system, which provides about 30 MW of electricity. The CHP’s cogeneration of electricity and steam is more efficient than producing them separately, and on-site electricity generation avoids the energy losses associated with long-distance transmission, transformation, and distribution of utility supply. At peak capacity, CHP and solar installation together could satisfy up to 60% of the Corpus Christi West refinery’s daily power needs. The solar project also improves energy efficiency by locating generation closer to where the power is being consumed, which avoids line loss. The emission reductions associated with the solar project are primarily Scope 2 GHG emissions, which are emissions from the electrical power generation supplied by electric utilities needed to operate the refinery.
Since 2000, Flint Hills Resources Corpus Christi refineries have reduced criteria air emissions by 70% while increasing production to meet demand. The refineries have reduced Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gases by more than 30% relative to production since 2010.
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