Energy Management: Unlocking the Offshore Potential of Marine Energy

Power where it is needed—this is the key challenge for decarbonization of the blue economy. It is at the heart of EC-OG’s purpose; to deliver world class, innovative energy technologies and systems that change the offshore energy landscape towards a sustainable future.

The offshore environment is remote, harsh, and expensive. All too often, it is a dangerous place to operate. Furthermore, there is a diverse range of technical challenges and rarely a one-size-fits-all solution. As in most other sectors, there is a non-negotiable and accelerating requirement to decarbonise the blue economy, whilst concurrently, there is a desire to automate operations and remove the need for people to work in risky locations. This presents a perfect storm of challenges and opportunities for the use of innovative energy systems to electrify offshore assets, both at surface and underwater.

Connecting offshore equipment to the onshore grid may be feasible for larger applications like oil & gas platform electrification, but for many smaller systems, it is just not achievable or cost effective. Creating an offshore grid can be a viable alternative across the demand spectrum, using ocean energy and intelligent energy management to power remote offshore assets reliably and efficiently.

The Time for Transition

EC-OG’s core technology is in intelligent energy management, facilitating the use of renewable ocean power technologies to provide clean energy systems, by integration and intelligent management of energy storage. Based in Aberdeen, Scotland and with a historical customer base in the oil & gas industry, EC-OG has led the energy transition conversation and is actively diversifying into other sectors, such as offshore wind.

IEMS: A Renewable Energy Gateway

EC-OG’s Halo technology is the gateway for renewable energy and energy storage into offshore assets. Developed as a seabed-based Lithium-ion battery architecture, a fundamental basis of the Halo system is its Intelligent Energy Management System (IEMS). Designed specifically for the harsh marine environment, IEMS uses efficient and reliable electronics to monitor, control and protect the clean energy production, providing security to the end user and safeguarding the long-term operations of remote marine assets.

Energy management in this context refers to the entire energy value chain for a marine asset, from the efficient production of power, through storage, to use and re-use of energy by an asset. By using a well-designed and balanced energy management system, we can maximize the efficiency and flexibility of a non-utility scale offshore energy system.

The applications for IEMS are wide-ranging and important. From production control systems in the hydrocarbon industry, autonomous vehicle recharging for oil and gas, offshore wind, defence and aquaculture inspection activities, sensor packages which enable advancements in ocean science, microgrids for coastal communities or for powering aquaculture farms in far from shore locations. The challenge for all applications remains the same, to decarbonize existing marine operations whilst also providing sufficient clean energy for the burgeoning blue economy.

For ocean energy, efficiency means managing the intermittency of renewable marine energy so that sufficient energy is always available on-demand, whether from a regular and highly predictable resource like tidal energy, or something less regular.

Clean Energy Systems

Decentralized power generation technologies are exploding in number and exploitation of wave, wind, tidal and solar energy at remote offshore locations is now achievable with a choice of available technologies. EC-OG is power generation agnostic; its IEMS and Halo technologies are specifically designed to work with all the aforementioned energy sources, as well as others including geothermal, hydrogen fuel cells and even ‘traditional’ methods of generating power at remote locations, such as diesel and gas turbines, marine umbilicals and temporary vessel downlines.

This flexibility is paramount and places EC-OG uniquely as an integrator of clean energy systems tailor made for the application, accurately sizing power generation and energy storage according to the environmental conditions of a particular location and the duty cycle of the application. However, whilst the company is actively growing into surface and land-based applications, EC-OG continues to innovate in its core subsea market.

Renewables for Subsea Power

The company has a number of active projects using its technology to help create offshore micro-grids for a host of blue economy applications and recently announced the second phase of the Renewables for Subsea Power project, a collaborative demonstration of a wave powered offshore micro-grid for operating hydrocarbon production systems and temporary or semi-permanent hybrid AUV’s.

Working closely with Mocean Energy, Modus, Harbour Energy and part-funders OGTC, the project will utilise EC-OG’s Halo technology as the gateway for wave energy into a subsea control system provided by Baker Hughes. With deployment scheduled for Q1 2022, the partners will demonstrate the potential of the technology for a range of subsea oil & gas applications, including remediation of faulty umbilical cables in existing developments, as a fast-track solutions for single well tiebacks and as an enabler for ultra-long step out distances, where local power generation could make these developments more environmentally and economically viable.

Later this year, the first commercial deployment of EC-OG’s Halo technology will be realized. The Autonomous Offshore Power System, developed by US wave energy developer C·Power, features EC-OG’s Halo battery storage and intelligent energy management system as the subsea gateway for innovative seabed sensor technology and AUV recharging. Deployment is scheduled for summer 2021 at WETS in Hawaii, where C·Power aim to achieve a number of world firsts in an exciting demonstration of the capabilities of a wave powered offshore micro-grid.

The Opportunity

The offshore energy landscape is changing. With ambitious climate change targets driving the need to modify the way the blue economy operates; the time is right for offshore operators to widen their horizons and embrace innovative ocean power systems.

EC-OG’s IEMS is the gateway for renewable energy into offshore assets, providing a flexible, scalable and efficient interface for power generation, energy storage and demand side management. IEMS is an integral part of EC-OG’s Halo battery storage architecture—with imminent deployments of the technology with wave powered systems, the opportunity to build remote, autonomous and clean offshore power systems is now within reach.

This story was originally featured in ON&T May 2021. Click here to read more.