Potential of SubSea power hubs in remote locations

Project Summary

Offshore assets and ocean equipment have a huge power demand.  To decarbonise this power, they need to electrify or use another low carbon fuel.

The ocean remains a tremendous, untapped resource for green energy. And the wave conditions around the UK coastline are optimum to support wave energy developments.

Harnessing just one percent of our global wave power resource would eliminate more than 50 million tonnes of CO2 annually and power more than 50 million homes.

Project overview:

Verlume, formally known as EC-OG has developed a ground-breaking turbine system harnessing energy within ocean currents to produce autonomous electrical power for multiple applications including subsea wells. The project supported FEED work for a North Sea field trial focused on optimising the deployment and de-risking the installation and operational phases. Successfully integrating renewable energy technologies into the production process delivers a low-carbon power source while reducing overall operating costs.

Industry value:

The Subsea Power Hub is a subsea power device developed by Verlume to provide electrical power to remote locations where subsea infrastructure is found. The system extracts the kinetic energy from passing ocean currents and using its internal Intelligent Energy Management System, converts it into electrical energy, thus making power available for external subsea control systems, sensors and communications.

The project has established that the field trial concept developed by Verlume is technically feasible, and areas have been identified to reduce the risk of the trial, both from a technical and commercial standpoint. Assessment of the technology development indicated that there remain inherent risks in the trial due to unknown factors for which assumptions must be confirmed (such as flow rates and seabed conditions). Offering a reduced-scale device could reduce these risks and secure a field trial opportunity.

Verlume has had positive operator feedback on the field trial proposal. The field trial feasibility study has allowed EC-OG to greatly advance the development of the device and has provided a much greater understanding of the operational limitations of the project. Next step for system development is securing a definitive application to verify assumptions and to develop the final device’s technical specification.