Shell has contributed to a collaborative project aimed at powering subsea equipment using a blend of wave energy and underwater energy storage near Scotland’s Orkney islands.
The Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP) demonstrator project, situated five kilometers east of Orkney’s main island, utilizes wave energy converter (WEC) technology integrated with an underwater battery. Its objective is to demonstrate how environmentally friendly technologies can deliver dependable, low-carbon power and communications to subsea equipment extensively utilized by the oil and gas industry.
This initiative, now approaching its one-year mark, links the Blue X wave energy converter from Mocean Energy in Edinburgh with a Halo underwater battery storage system developed by energy management experts Verlume in Aberdeen.
Furthermore, the project aims to provide a cost-effective and lower carbon alternative to umbilical cables, which typically have long lead times for procurement and installation. Shell will be joining project leads Mocean Energy and Verlume, along with industry players like Baker Hughes, Serica Energy, Harbour Energy, Transmark Subsea, PTTEP, TotalEnergies, and the Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC).
In the operational demonstrator, a 10kW wave-riding demonstrator unit has been connected to Baker Hughes’ subsea controls equipment with servicing by a Transmark autonomous vehicle.
Participants in the project gain access to all data and results from the current test program, along with a feasibility assessment of the use of RSP technology at a location of their choice.
The Orkney deployment represents the third phase of the RSP project. Phase two, conducted in 2021, involved integrating the core technologies in an onshore test environment at Verlume’s operations facility in Aberdeen.
In 2021, Mocean Energy’s Blue X prototype underwent a program of at-sea testing at the European Marine Energy Centre’s Scapa Flow test site in Orkney, where it generated first power and gathered key data on machine performance and operation.
Verlume states that its seabed battery energy storage system was designed for a harsh underwater environment and is scalable and modular. Its integrated intelligent energy management system, Axonn, is designed to autonomously maximize available battery capacity in real time.
Graeme Rogerson, Head of Net Zero Technology at NZTC, stated that the technologies had demonstrated their effectiveness in delivering low carbon power and communication to offshore subsea infrastructure. “Shell’s investment and the opportunity to continue to test in a real-world environment will help to further progress the technologies,” he stated.
Shell’s French peer, TotalEnergies, signed up to the RSP project last December.
Growth Outlook Data from industry body Ocean Energy Europe (OEE) indicates a growing number of deployments of WEC technologies.
OEE has said that deployment of ocean wave and tidal stream energy could reach 2.9GW by 2030, with 92% of new deployment predicted to be in European waters.
The UK boosted its own sector last year by increasing the maximum bid price for tidal energy from £202 ($255)/MWh to £261/MWh.
