Reducing the final cost of ownership of electric heat tracing systems in Northern Alberta

In the next decade it is expected that the major oil companies will spend $14 billion CDN on new and upgraded facilities in Northern Alberta´s oil sands. Based on previous oil sands projects, the preferred method of heat tracing will be electric with the total heat trace connected load approaching 100 MW. The total installed costs for heat tracing and insulation could approach $700 million CDN. These numbers suggest that large potential savings are possible by looking at new and different ways of engineering electric heat trace projects. In this paper, we look at using new ways of using existing nontraditional heat tracing control technologies. We believe we have the potential of saving 15% or $100 million CDN of the total $700 million CDN to be spent on heat tracing and insulation. Five control and monitoring methods are economically analyzed in detail: self-regulating control; line sensing control; ambient control; deadleg control; and proportional ambient sensing control