Going offshore: Combining renewable energy and food production!

Introduction

This research addresses the challenges of allocation new power-generation to promote a greener offshore industry. The technology innovation focuses on the flexible, green, reliable and cost effective power for offshore users. The new technologies include wind power-generation at deep water (e.g. floating wind turbine) and the offshore CO2 storage. The synergies of the integration of the new power-generation capacity with other industries (e.g. offshore oil/gas installations and aquaculture farms) will be showcased in the scenarios.

Approach

The development of a new design tool VIKINGS (VIsion of the Key tools for INncreasing power-GenerationS offshore) has been proposed. VIKINGS aims at three major goals. Firstly, it will adapt and extend the state-of-the-art results from national and international projects. For example, the methodologies developed by EU FP7 NORSEWInD will be employed to provide high accuracy offshore wind resources maps. Secondly, the new technologies, including emerging wind power-generation at deep water and the offshore CO2 storage, will be covered by VIKINGS. Finally, the synergies of the renewable energy industry integration with other industries will be indicated by the scenarios.

Main body of abstract

It is challenging to allocate the needed new power-generation capacity to promote the industry activities in the offshore sector, while also adhering to the global climate policies. Yet, there is little R&D addressing the flexible, green, reliable and cost effective power for offshore users.

The primary objective of this proposal is to develop a new design tool VIKINGS to allocate the new power-generation capacity for offshore users. VIKINGS consists of three “big data” tools and their integration scenarios. The first tool identifies the characteristics of the new energy demand from the existing and the emerging industries at offshore sectors. The second tool maps the energy resources and site conditions, and combines with the supply chain library. The third tool includes the mature and emerging power-generation, CO2 offshore storage and transmission system technologies. With the inputs from these three tools, an integrated design tool can be achieved which supports the developer, strategic planner and decision-maker at energy system level.

The secondary objective is to apply VIKINGS to quantitatively assess CO2 emissions reduction and corresponding investment costs by deploying renewable energy offshore. An ancillary aspect is to identify potential synergies from integration of renewable energy with other offshore industries (e.g. offshore wind energy cost reduction by supplying the power to offshore users; the offshore wind farm integration with oil/gas installation or aquaculture increases the yields in the same area and upgrades the aquaculture industry.)


Conclusion

The development of the new design tool VIKINGS focusing on the flexible, green, reliable and cost effective power for offshore users has been proposed. VIKINGS aims at three major improvements. Firstly, it will integrate the major power loads, the energy resources and the site conditions mapping, and the power-generation capacities and the transmission systems. Secondly, the wind farm investment cost mapping in offshore site will be improved by combing the latest offshore wind resources mapping and the site condition mapping. Third, the emerging technologies for the offshore power generation will be added to VIKINGS.


Learning objectives
The flexible, green, reliable and cost effective power for offshore users.