FPP use renewable energy to support oil and gas facilities

These are the results from a project that Floating Power Plant (FPP) has just finished with Lundin Energy Norway, NOV-APL, Semco Maritime, Cefront Technologies and Aalborg University, using floating wind-and-wave power to support an offshore oil and gas facility. The project developed three different designs to see if the concepts set up by the partners were usable solutions from both an engineering point of view as well as a commercial business case.

The three concepts were:

• Intermittent direct power – a simple integration of floating wind and wave power into an oil and gas facility
• Baseload power – based on the intermittent direct power design, energy storage in the form of batteries and diesel generators have been integrated to provide baseload or partial baseload power
• EOR – integration of a full EOR-system placed on FPP’s platform, enabling 10 000 m³ processed water injection per day with a minimum injection rate of 5000 m³

Anders Køhler, Chief Executive Officer of FPP, says: ‘We have shown that using renewable energy in the oil and gas industry is a good idea. All three designs proved to be viable and promising from both a technical and a business point of view, and they can be used in different commercial situations. We are also excited to see all three concepts progress towards commercialisation and taken up in technology readiness level, also addressing the challenges identified in the project.’

Using renewable energy to decrease emissions in the oil and gas industry might sound like an obvious idea, but it is difficult to implement, since adhering to rules and regulations, client requirements, power management and control at the same time could prove to be difficult. When the project started, the rules and regulations were not even clear, so DNV GL were hired to help with establishing a rule set for the various concepts.

Anders Køhler, adds: ‘When we started this project, the market was emerging, but since then we have seen a significant increase in interest. This is driven largely by the industry’s net zero production ambitions combined with the ability of developing renewable energy technologies to provide cost efficient, clean power with an operational risk profile similar to the current solutions.’

FPP, Lundin Energy Norway, NOV-APL, Semco Maritime, Cefront Technologies and Aalborg University were granted DKK4.79 million by the Danish EUDP programme for the project ‘Decarbonisation of Oil & Gas Production – by cost effective Floating Renewable Technologies’.

The project was based on FPP’s combined floating wind and wave technology and developed and adapted new designs and business concepts, for utilisation in combination with the extraction of hydrocarbons. This is an emerging market with significant potential.

Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/other-renewables/15012021/fpp-use-renewable-energy-to-support-oil-and-gas-facilities/