LUKOIL COMMISSIONS A “SOLAR” FILLING STATION
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Vagit Alekperov, OAO LUKOIL President, and Igor Levitin, Minister of Transport of the Russian Federation, participated in an official ceremony of commissioning a filling station equipped with an autonomous energy supply system based on a photovoltaic power plant (PPP) in Krasnaya Polyana (Krasnodar region) today.
The PPP capacity is 9.6 kW.
The energy generated by PPP will be mainly used for external and internal illumination of the filling station and will ensure uninterrupted operation of the facility in case of an emergency shutdown of the external electrical power units.
LUKOIL's filling station located in Krasnaya Polyana is the first Russian filling station equipped with the PPP designed in Russia to use the photovoltaic modules produced domestically.
As compared with the other alternative electrical power units, the PPP has the following advantages:
- no environmental pollution in the course of operation;
- durability (20 years and longer) without considerable wear;
- easy to assemble and maintain.
The design capacity of the filling station is 250 fillings per day. The fuel is stored in three subsurface double-walled reservoirs, i.e. two reservoirs with the capacity of 50 cubic meters each, for EKTO-92 compliant gasoline and Euro compliant diesel fuel and a two-compartment reservoir for SuperEuro-98 compliant gasoline (25 cubic meters) and EKTO-95 compliant gasoline (25 cubic meters). The annular space of the reservoirs is filled with inactive gas (nitrogen) to ensure integrity of the inner wall of the reservoir. The reservoirs have enhanced corrosion protection from the outside and the inside. The service life of plastic two-walled industrial pipelines is 50 years. Three fuel dispensing units are assembled at the filling station. A high-speed fuel dispensing unit for diesel fuel filling is assembled at a separate site.
‘As for renewable energy project implementation outlooks, they go in line with LUKOIL's general development strategy which mainly focuses on ensuring environmental security, mitigation of environmental impact and application of state-of-the-art energy-saving technologies’, Mr. Alekperov commented.
The first LUKOIL filling station equipped with an autonomous energy supply system based on photovoltaic power plant (PPP) has also been commissioned in Serbia.
On the same day, Mr. Alekperov and Mr. Levitin also signed a cooperation agreement between the Company and the Ministry to establish strategic partnership aimed at the implementation of state-and-private partnership projects and improvement of cooperation mechanisms between the public and private sectors in transportation.
