Wireless Ignition System for FFU (Floating Flare Unit)

TCR (Tai Crest Resources Sdn Bhd) designed a flare ignition system that incorporated a slip stream design which draws a small proportion of the flare gas to be burnt away from the main flare gas flow, mixes this with air to obtain the correct stoichiometric mix, ignites this mixture with the high voltage ignitors and uses this smaller flame to ignite the main flare gas as there is no fuel gas supply available for a standard ignition system.

Our design incorporated a self-contained skid which included solar panels, batteries & a radio link which was mounted onto the FFU as a single unit with the only connection required after installation being the connection of the high voltage output to the electronic ignitors mounted near the flare tip. The solar panels were mounted on 3 sides of the skid enabling solar charging to take place irrespective of the direction the FFU was facing. The roof of the skid also functioned as a heat shield to protect the electrical equipment from the radiant heat generated by the Flare.

The main challenge, electrically, was designing a system with a very low power consumption to enable the system to last for up to 3 days with no solar charging as per Petronas specifications. Our system had a continuous power consumption of 6 Watts, the power required for the radio receiver to allow remote operation and less than 30 Watts during ignition. The battery capacity was based on these figures and we easily achieved 3 days of working without recharging of the batteries. The ignition system was tested at our factory with PCSB in attendance up to a distance of 300 m.