Retrofitting Offshore Drilling Rigs with Islanded DC Grids and Energy Storage

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stig Settemsdal ◽  
Saverio Ventrelli

Abstract The paper presents a novel approach for modernizing/retrofitting offshore drilling rig power plants with islanded direct current (DC) power grids and energy storage. The concept has been successfully applied on several offshore rigs which are in operation today and is applicable to jack-ups, semi-submersibles, drill ships, as well as other types of marine support vessels for oil and gas platforms and wind farms. The approach aims to enhance the feasibility of leveraging energy storage solutions on offshore drilling rigs and marine vessels by making use of the existing power plant footprint. Unique measures have also been incorporated into the electrical system architecture to ensure that the reliability and safety of the existing alternating current (AC)-based system are not compromised. This enables operators to capitalize on the numerous benefits of energy storage (e.g., reduced emissions, enhanced dynamic performance for drilling and dynamic positioning, etc.) without having to perform a "rip and replace" of the entire power plant and electrical infrastructure.

2013 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 209
Author(s):  
Inge Alme ◽  
Angel Casal ◽  
Trygve Leinum ◽  
Helge Flesland

The BOP is a critical safety system of an offshore drilling rig, as shown in the 2010 Macondo accident. A challenge for the oil and gas industry is to decide what to do when the BOP is failing. Pulling the BOP to the surface during operations for inspection and testing is a costly and timely operation. Many of the potential failures are not critical to overall safety as multiple levels of redundancy are often available. Scandpower and Moduspec, both subsidiaries of Lloyd’s Register, have developed a BOP risk model that will assist the industry make the pull or no pull decisions. Scandpower’s proprietary software RiskSpectrum is used for the modelling. This software is used for equivalent decision support in the nuclear power industry, where the risk levels of total nuclear power plants are monitored live by operators in the control rooms. By modelling existing BOPs and their submerged control systems, and using risk monitor software for keeping track on the status of the BOP subsystems and components, the industry is able to define the real-time operational risk level the BOP is operating at. It, therefore, allows the inclusion for sensitivity modelling with possible faulty components factored in the model. The main task of the risk model is to guide and support energy companies and regulators in the decision process when considering whether to pull the BOP for repairs. Moreover, it will help the communication with the regulators, since the basis for the decisions are more traceable and easier to follow for a third party.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stig Settemsdal

Abstract This paper discusses applications for lithium-ion batteries in an offshore oil and gas environment and describes how battery packs/energy storage can be applied in hybrid, diesel-electric power plants to create low-emissions drilling rigs. The incorporation of energy storage, particularly in direct current (DC) based power plants, can provide a wide range of benefits for operators, allowing them to reduce the runtime of onboard diesel engines and optimize combustion efficiency, thereby maximizing fuel utilization and reducing emissions. Batteries can also be used to create new redundancy schemes, as well as for peak shaving and blackout prevention. The West Mira semisubmersible installation in the North Sea was the world's first modern drilling rig to operate a low-emission hybrid (diesel-electric) power plant with lithium-ion batteries connected to the main power grid. The paper describes the energy storage solution that was implemented on the facility and discusses how considerations for safety and reliability were addressed.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (8) ◽  
pp. 1576
Author(s):  
Hui Zhu ◽  
Gongxu Jia ◽  
Qingling Zhang ◽  
Shan Zhang ◽  
Xiaoli Lin ◽  
...  

Offshore drilling rigs are the foundation of oil and gas exploitation in water areas. Their spatial and temporal distribution, state attributes and other information directly reflect the exploitation level of regional oil and gas resources. Therefore, it is very important to build an automatic detecting method for offshore drilling rigs with good performance to accurately capture the temporal and spatial distribution and state of oil and gas exploitation activities. At present, there are two main groups of methods for offshore drilling rigs: invariant feature-based methods and nighttime firelight-based methods. Methods based on invariant location are more subjective in terms of their parameter settings and require intensive computation. Nighttime light-based methods are largely unable to identify offshore drilling rigs without associated waste gas ignition. Furthermore, multiple offshore drilling rigs in close proximity to one another cannot be effectively distinguished with low spatial resolution imagery. To address these shortcomings, we propose a new method for the automatic identification of offshore drilling rigs based on Landsat-7 ETM+ images from 2018 to 2019, taking the Caspian Sea as the research area. We build a nominal annual cloud and cloud shadow-free Normalized Difference Water Index (NDWI) composite by designing an optimal NDWI compositing method based of the influence of cloud and cloud shadow on the NDWI values of water, bare land (island) and offshore drilling rigs. The classification of these objects is simultaneously done during the compositing process, with the following rules: water body (Max_NDWI > 0.55), bare land (island) (Min_NDWI < −0.05) and offshore drilling rig (0 < Mean_NDWI < 0.4). A threshold segmentation and postprocessing were carried out to further refine the results. Using this method, 497 offshore platforms were automatically identified using a nominal annual cloud and cloud shadow-free NDWI composite image and Google Earth Engine. Validation using Sentinel-2 Multispectral Imager (MSI) and Google Earth images demonstrated that the correct rate of offshore drilling rig detection in the Caspian Sea is 90.2%, the missing judgment rate is 5.3% and the wrong judgment rate is 4.5%, proving the performance of the proposed method. This method can be used to identify offshore drilling rigs within a large water surface area relatively quickly, which is of great significance for exploring the exploitation status of offshore oil and gas resources. It can also be extended to finer spatial resolution optical remote sensing images; thus small-size drilling rigs can be effectively detected.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (23) ◽  
pp. 6293
Author(s):  
Ting Zhang ◽  
Shuaishuai Cao ◽  
Lingying Pan ◽  
Chenyu Zhou

Energy storage technology plays a significant role in the pursuit of the high-quality development of the electricity market. Many regions in China have issued policies and regulations of different intensities for promoting the popularization of the energy storage industry. Based on a variety of initial conditions of different regions, this paper explores the evolutionary process of electricity market players considering energy storage technology. The trilateral evolutionary game model is adopted to analyze the strategies of the power plant, the power grid, and the government. After assigning the model according to an actual situation, each equilibrium point corresponds to a real electricity market situation. The results indicate the following: (1) In the process of stabilizing, the role of “Advanced Imitators” leading the strategy of building energy storage changes between the power plant and the power grid. (2) In Eastern, Middle, and Southern China, the power plants and power grids on a greater-than-medium scale will choose to build energy storage without governmental regulations, due to the abundant net profit. (3) In the northeast of China, power plants with a medium-or-lower scale will choose not to build energy storage because of the relatively low on-grid price, and small power grids can make enough profits by operating energy storage facilities. (4) In Northern China, the large power plants and the medium power grids will choose to build energy storage due to the high electricity sale price and the resulting high profit. (5) In Western China, the small power plants and power grids cannot afford to build energy storage due to the low electricity price. The results lead to valuable policy suggestions for the local governments of China in promoting energy storage in the future. To meet the goal of energy storage popularization, regional electricity market plans need relevant policies based on its existing conditions, offering suitable external conditions for adding energy storage.


Author(s):  
Evgeniy Chupin ◽  
Konstantin Frolov ◽  
Maxim Korzhavin ◽  
Oleg Zhdaneev

AbstractEnergy storage systems are an important component of the energy transition, which is currently planned and launched in most of the developed and developing countries. The article outlines development of an electric energy storage system for drilling based on electric-chemical generators. Description and generalization are given for the main objectives for this system when used on drilling rigs isolated within a single pad, whether these are fed from diesel gensets, gas piston power plants, or 6–10 kV HV lines. The article studies power operating modes of drilling rigs, provides general conclusions and detailed results for one of more than fifty pads. Based on the research, a generic architecture of the energy storage module is developed, and an engineering prototype is built. The efficiency of using a hybrid energy accumulation design is proven; the design calls for joint use of Li-ion cells and supercapacitors, as well as three-level inverters, to control the storage system. The article reviews all possible options for connecting the system into a unified rig power circuit, and the optimum solution is substantiated. The research into the rig operating modes and engineering tests yielded a simplified mathematical model of an energy storage unit integrated into the power circuit of a drilling rig. The model is used to forecast the payoff period of the system for various utilization options and rig operating modes. The findings of this study can help to better understand which type of storage system is the most efficient for energy systems with temporary high load peaks, like drilling rigs.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Steenberg ◽  
Stig Settemsdal ◽  
Alf Olav Valen

Abstract This paper outlines an approach/solution which enables offshore operators to economically upgrade (i.e., modernize) drilling drive lineups with direct current (DC) based power grids and energy storage. Many legacy drilling rigs in operation (and ones that are currently stacked/idled) utilize drilling drive technology that is currently obsolete or will be in the near future. Modernizing these rigs can often be an arduous and expensive undertaking. Most drilling setups feature lineups of individual variable frequency drives (VFDs) equipped with dedicated rectifiers, which control power output to motor/consumers, such as mud pumps, the top drive, draw works, rotary table, etc. These alternating current (AC) based setups have been used with success for decades. However, as fuel consumption and emissions, as well as space and weight, have become priorities, DC grid systems have gained interest. The solution described in this paper is designed to enable drilling rig operators to upgrade to a modern DC power distribution system using the same footprint as the existing drilling line-up and with minimal modifications to cabling. Energy storage, such as batteries or supercapacitors, can also be integrated within the footprint to enhance the performance of drilling operations – for example through peak shaving and blackout prevention. The solution/approach is highly flexible/modular and is derived from proven concept that has been deployed on hundreds of marine vessels worldwide. The paper provides a description of a solution that is being implemented on a jack-up rig in the Middle East. The new integrated drilling drive setup uses the same footprint, cable network, and communication principles as the rig's existing system and will be comparatively less costly and complicated to implement than simply swapping out existing drives (i.e., one for one replacement).


1973 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 480
Author(s):  
J. M. Killey

As onshore oil and gas deposits are becoming more difficult to locate, and as the world demands for energy continue to increase at an alarming rate, oil companies are channeling much of their exploration activities towards offshore operations, and in particular, towards operations centered off Canada's coast lines. Because of the environment, offshore drilling presents problems which are novel to the onshore-geared oil industry. J. M. Killey discusses in detail many of the considerations involved in drafting the offshore drilling contract, concentrating on problems such as the liability of the various parties; costs; scheduling; pollution; conflict of laws; etc. Similarly, he discusses service contracts (such as supply boat charters; towing services; helicopter services; etc.^ which are necessity to the operation of an offshore drilling rig. To complement his paper, the author has included number of appendices which list the various considerations lawyer must keep in mind when drafting contracts for offshore operations.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (18) ◽  
pp. 8484
Author(s):  
Seok-Ho Song ◽  
Jin-Young Heo ◽  
Jeong-Ik Lee

A nuclear power plant is one of the power sources that shares a large portion of base-load. However, as the proportion of renewable energy increases, nuclear power plants will be required to generate power more flexibly due to the intermittency of the renewable energy sources. This paper reviews a layout thermally integrating the liquid air energy storage system with a nuclear power plant. To evaluate the performance realistically while optimizing the layout, operating nuclear power plant conditions are used. After revisiting the analysis, the optimized performance of the proposed system is predicted to achieve 59.96% of the round-trip efficiency. However, it is further shown that external environmental conditions could deteriorate the performance. For the design of liquid air energy storage-nuclear power plant integrated systems, both the steam properties of the linked plants and external factors should be considered.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sharafat Ali Mangi ◽  
Azhar Ali Mangi ◽  
Mazhar Hussain Mangi

2020 ◽  
Vol 142 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Fletcher Carlson ◽  
Jane H. Davidson

Abstract The intermittency of wind and solar energy can disrupt the dynamic balance utilities must maintain to meet fluctuating demand. This work examines the use of thermal energy storage (TES) to increase the operational flexibility of a baseload power plant and thus incentivize renewable energy and decarbonize the grid. A first and second law thermodynamic model of a nuclear power plant establishes the impacts of TES on the capacity factor and thermal efficiency of the plant. Four storage options, which are distinguished by the location within the cycle where steam is diverted for charging and whether discharge of the TES is via the primary or a secondary Rankine cycle, are considered. TES is compared to steam bypass, which is an alternative to provide baseload flexibility. TES is significantly better than steam bypass. The storage option with the greatest thermodynamic benefit is charged by diverting superheated steam at the outlet of the moisture separator/reheater (MSR) to the TES. The TES is discharged for peaking power through an optimized secondary cycle. TES increases the capacity factor as much as 15% compared to steam bypass at representative charging mass flowrates. The storage option that diverts steam from the steam generator to charge the TES and discharges the TES to the primary cycle extends the discharge power to a lower range and does not require a secondary cycle. In this case, the capacity factor and efficiency are as much as 8% greater than that of steam bypass.


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