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Winners named for North Sea electrification competition

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Oilfield Technology,


Three winners are sharing a £1 million prize for ideas that could help cut greenhouse gas emissions by moving forward the drive to electrify platforms in the North Sea.

The Decarbonisation competition for the electrification of offshore oil and gas installations was launched by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), working with BEIS, to fund technical and commercial studies on offshore electrification in the UK North Sea as part of the North Sea Transition Deal outcomes.

The winning applications look at various ideas that could speed up essential electrification projects. The three companies must now complete work on their studies by 31 March 2022, with project reports to be published in 2Q22.

Orcadian Energy (project lead): Innovative concepts for the electrification of offshore installations in the Central Graben.

Orcadian Energy will evaluate innovative concepts for the electrification of key offshore installations in the Central Graben (e.g. not requiring an electrical connection to the shore) producing an industry report describing this approach. Orcadian’s proposed concept would use renewable energy, generated from local wind farms, for the bulk of the electricity required; with back-up power generated from gas or net zero fuels, supported by batteries for a fast response.

Based in the UK, Orcadian Energy is operator of the proposed Pilot polymer flood project on the Western Platform of the Central North Sea and will receive support on this concept study from Crondall Energy (client engineer), Enertechnos (cable technology), Petrofac (EPC and O&M contractor), North Sea Midstream Partners (Infrastructure Investor), and Wärtsilä (power system supplier).

Orsted (project lead): Addressing technical and commercial requirements of windfarm connections with offshore installations.

This concept study will use Ørsted’s Hornsea offshore wind farm lease area and an existing gas platform in the Southern North Sea, to explore the optimal technical design for a stable and reliable power supply from an offshore wind farm. This would be an important step towards decarbonising offshore installations as per the North Sea Transition Deal. The four-month feasibility study will also investigate the commercial solutions for establishing an electrical connection between an offshore wind farm and other installations. The aim is to provide a solution that could be scaled, replicated, and applied to any wind farm and platform in proximity to one another. Ørsted will deliver this project working together with two partners, Neptune Energy and Goal7.

Ørsted is a global renewable energy developer and operator, supplying large-scale and cost-competitive offshore/onshore wind and solar energy solutions.

Katoni Engineering: An optimised interface for distributed offshore renewable sources supplying existing offshore installations with secure and low-emissions power.

The Katoni-led study will provide an assessment of how different sources and locations of renewable generation can be utilised by existing offshore assets on a large, repeatable scale, driving timeline and cost efficiencies. The work will address key concerns of oil and gas operators related to security of supply from a non-grid connected solution, by leveraging the scale and mix of the power network. This feasibility study will be of interest to multiple sectors of the energy market from Operators to electrical supply networks to offshore windpower operators.

Based in Aberdeen, Katoni Engineering is a specialist engineering company focused on offshore asset management and net zero operations.


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Oilfield Technology’s third issue of 2021 starts with a report from Wood Mackenzie focusing on the upstream industry’s fortunes in Asia-Pacific. The rest of the issue is dedicated to features covering offshore engineering, coiled tubing, frac technology, completion technologies, water management, well placement and much more.

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Read the article online at: https://www.oilfieldtechnology.com/hse/07122021/winners-named-for-north-sea-electrification-competition/

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