Reliable local renewable power decarbonising offshore energy
Ana Silva
A * and Lorna Yuill B
A
B
Ana da Silva is a Civil Engineering graduate from the University of Cape Town with 12 years of experience in the Oil & Gas industry. She debuted her career as a Completion engineer before gaining experience in Subsea project management. Ana was the Commercial Operations Leader for Oil Field Equipment and Services in Angola for 4 years prior to joining the Growth Hub Team as Portfolio Development Manager for SSA, MENATI and APAC in 2022, based in Angola. |
Over the past 4 years, Lorna Yuill has worked in the oil and gas industry, leveraging a career spent in power generation, aerospace, and defence sectors where she held various roles including Business Development for the UK, German and US business entities. In her most recent position, she serves as Global Growth Leader for Baker Hughes Subsea Production Systems and Services. In the role, Lorna identifies and incubates a pipeline of new technologies and Services, which meet our customers’ diverse requirements and challenges. Prior to that, Lorna was the Product Services Engineering Manager assuring 24×7 Global Customer Support to offshore oil and gas operators. Lorna has broad international experience, having worked in Europe, and the United States and provided dedicated support to airlines in China and Taiwan. She holds an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology (USA), and an MA in International Relations and Conflict from Leicester University (UK). |
Abstract
Reliable local renewable power generation enables more environmentally and economically viable operations, to meet with the challenge of renewable energy intermittency and energy security. The Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP) project support targets towards Net Zero Targets by providing a full solution to generate low carbon, cost-effective, power and communications to remote locations in the offshore energy industry. The development of the RSP system is a collaborative project led by three UK-based companies in partnership with wider industry engagement from operators and the Aberdeen-based Net Zero Technology Centre. Carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) is set to play a key role in the energy transition. CCUS developments will incorporate all-electric subsea systems that can benefit from the RSP solution. This first of a kind integrated solution will contribute significantly to the generation of clean energy in the petroleum industry using a Wave Energy Converter and seabed battery energy storage for production control applications. The various applications that would benefit from the cost and CO2 savings from deploying the system, compared to traditional methods, include umbilical remediation, brownfield expansion, long offsets, CCUS, and Autonomous Underwater Vehicle residency. For CCUS projects key advantages are a specific design catered towards simplified controls architecture (e.g. electric controls), and the ability to offer an alternative to direct current fibre-optic from shore. A full system demonstrator deployment commenced in Feb-23 and has demonstrated system capability to power subsea equipment and an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV). Trials continue through 2024.
Keywords: autonomous underwater vehicle, communication, decarbonisation, in situ renewable power, remote offshore power, renewable subsea power, solar panels, subsea battery, umbilical remediation, wave energy.
Ana da Silva is a Civil Engineering graduate from the University of Cape Town with 12 years of experience in the Oil & Gas industry. She debuted her career as a Completion engineer before gaining experience in Subsea project management. Ana was the Commercial Operations Leader for Oil Field Equipment and Services in Angola for 4 years prior to joining the Growth Hub Team as Portfolio Development Manager for SSA, MENATI and APAC in 2022, based in Angola. |
Over the past 4 years, Lorna Yuill has worked in the oil and gas industry, leveraging a career spent in power generation, aerospace, and defence sectors where she held various roles including Business Development for the UK, German and US business entities. In her most recent position, she serves as Global Growth Leader for Baker Hughes Subsea Production Systems and Services. In the role, Lorna identifies and incubates a pipeline of new technologies and Services, which meet our customers’ diverse requirements and challenges. Prior to that, Lorna was the Product Services Engineering Manager assuring 24×7 Global Customer Support to offshore oil and gas operators. Lorna has broad international experience, having worked in Europe, and the United States and provided dedicated support to airlines in China and Taiwan. She holds an MBA from Quantic School of Business and Technology (USA), and an MA in International Relations and Conflict from Leicester University (UK). |
References
The United Nations (2015) Paris Agreement to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, T.I.A.S. No. 16-1104. Available at https://www.state.gov/16-1104/
