Page 30: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Nov/Dec 2020)

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FEATURE SUBSEA POWER

REMOTE POWER,

ON DEMAND

By Elaine Maslin aking the power to where you want it is another option It’s fully capable of supporting vehicles such as trials partner – perhaps not for compression or pumping system, but Saab Seaeye’s Sabretooth doing 24/7 inspection and light in- potentially for monitoring, inspection, and even inter- tervention operations, says Reenst Lesemann, C-Power’s CEO.

T vention systems, such as resident robotics concepts. C-Power was set up in 2005 to produce utility-scale wave It’s an idea some have been looking at, such as Ocean power. It’s still an aim, but the company became aware that

Power Technologies, which recently won a DeepStar project discreet power systems could bene?t other applications after award to study the deployment and operational requirements taking part in a DARPA project to provide power to a subsea of using its PB3 PowerBuoy to provide remotely controllable power network, says Lesemann. power for deepwater subsea oil production applications. Last year, it then worked on a US Department of Energy

The project, supported by Total, will explore using the project, and the result was the SeaRAY AOPS, which can

PowerBuoy and a subsea battery in 1,000, 2,000, and 3,000m provide <1 kW to 20 kW. It also has DataRAY, providing water depth. Read more here (https://bit.ly/37rw1d8). <20 watts, and is working on StingRAY, to provide megawatt

OPT’s Power Buoy system has already been demonstrating lo- power needs. cal electricity supply from wave energy production offshore Italy. Key requirements were that it could easy to transport (it ?ts

Now Virginia, US-based Columbia Power Technologies in two containers), deployable with a small vessel and depth (C-Power) has come up with what it’s calling an autonomous agnostic, says Lesemann. offshore power systems (AOPS) to support anything from a Other potential uses include supporting leak or environ- resident ROV to, potentially, even uncrewed surface vessel mental monitoring, says Lesemann, or even replacing umbili- (USV) recharging. cals in projects. Interestingly, Lesemann suggests this ethos,

Later this year, the SeaRAY system, which includes power, using small vessels to deploy a local subsea power, inspection, data, and communications, and could support short term (i.e. and or intervention provision could then change what types for a speci?c campaign) or longer term subsea power require- of vessels are used, by shifting what does what. Mix that in the ments, is set to be deployed on a six-month trial in 80m deep USVs and the options open up even more. water at a US Navy Wave Energy Testing Site near the Marine Over in the UK, Edinburgh-based Mocean Energy is also

Corps Base offshore Hawaii. looking to fuel subsea vehicles. The ?rm has designed a wave

Next year, the ?rm hopes to deploy the system at a 500m energy converter that it wants to offer to supply power to oil deep site in the UK North Sea through a SMART: Scotland and gas facilities, including tie-backs and ?eets of AUVs. grant, before going even deeper. It’s also looking at campaign- Earlier this year Mocean Energy announced a pilot project based asset inspections for offshore wind, which could also be with the Oil and Gas Technology Centre (OGTC), oil major in UK waters. Chrysaor and subsea specialists EC-OG and Modus to study

SeaRAY AOPS combines a wave-energy converter, with single the potential to use their Blue Star prototype to power a sub- combined mooring that includes power and communications sea battery and a remote underwater vehicle. from Wood Hole spin-out EOM Offshore, a seabed unit con- Last year, Mocean Energy secured £3.3 million from Wave taining Aberdeen-based EC-OG’s 100-kWh Halo lithium-ion Energy Scotland to build and test a half-scale version of their battery energy storage system and a tie-up with satellite com- technology at sea. The device is currently being completed at munications ?rm RigNet for when 4/5G LTE isn’t available. AJS Fabrication at Cowdenbeath in Fife. 30 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM