Page 12: of Offshore Engineer Magazine (Jan/Feb 2021)

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TECH FILE OFFSHORE WELLS

GEOTHERMAL ENERGY:

A NEW LIFE FOR OLD

OFFSHORE OIL WELLS?

Old ofshore oil wells could be turned into geothermal energy producers under a plan by a new consortium.

By Elaine Maslin ld offshore oil wells could be turned into geo- carbon-emitting gas turbines.

thermal energy producers under a plan by a new “Generating power from geothermal energy is nothing new, consortium. The group, The Aquarius North Sea and technology exists to do this from low-temperature ?uids,

Geothermal Consortium, is “actively” working but we need to understand the opportunity and value to the

O with North Sea operators to see if old wells could be used UKCS; Can geothermal power be used to replace that sup- to generate geothermal energy for existing platforms. But a plied by a 5MW or 10MW gas turbine?” future goal is green?eld geothermal exploration. The offshore well portfolio is varied, so solutions will take

Kirsten Pasturel, CEO of ZeGen Energy, says there’s huge some engineering and puzzling out.

potential with some mature oil ?elds producing over 100,000 The other companies in the consortium are dCarbonX, also barrels of water per day, at temperatures hot enough to gener- founded in 2020, and Danish well management ?rm Ross DK. ate power. There could even be the opportunity to drill new wells, just “The potential is huge when you look at the amount of for water production, suggests water produced on the UK Continental Shelf, previous aca- Gillian White, Subsurface Solution Centre manager at the demic studies suggest some ?elds in the UK could produce OGTC. But she says that legal and regulatory frameworks for 10-20MW of power based on their produced water volumes,” this are also part of the OGTC study. says Pasturel, who has been doing a study with the Oil & Gas Another challenge – outside of the scope of the study, which

Technology Centre (OGTC) in Aberdeen on the feasibility of is focusing on energy production for use offshore – would be the idea. to get that energy to shore economically, if enough is gener- “When wells are no longer economical for oil production, ated so that it can be exported. That might mean integration they could be repurposed for geothermal energy instead of with offshore renewable energy systems, says Pasturel, where just being shut-in,” she says. it could offer a baseload. The study is set to map out the po-

Using geothermal energy for power could then lower off- tential across the North Sea and look at available technologies shore operators’ emissions and costs by reducing reliance on in the market for use offshore. 12 OFFSHORE ENGINEER OEDIGITAL.COM