Bids close for UK offshore electrification competition

Offshore staff

LONDON – Britain’s Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) has received 29 bids for its £1-million ($1.37-million) competition concerning ideas for electrification of UK offshore platforms.

Winners will be announced in early December, with all work to be completed by March 31, 2022 and project reports to be published shortly afterwards.

Submissions on technical, engineering, and commercial issues have come in from operators, the supply chain, and academia.

According to the OGA, power generation accounts for around two-thirds of oil and gas production emissions. Powering installations with electricity supplied from a cable to the shore or from a nearby wind farm, it claims, could cut CO₂ emissions by 2-3 MM metric tons/yr (2.2-3.3 MM tons).

And the power demand from offshore oil and gas electrification could potentially support up to 4 GW of new offshore wind power capacity. 

The OGA has been pursuing electrification in the UK central North Sea and for fields west of Shetland with operators, also pressing operators to step up the pace of project delivery.

Its Energy Integration Report suggested the UK continental shelf could absorb up to 60% of the UK’s entire CO₂ abatement to achieve net zero emissions by 2050, via platform electrification, carbon capture and storage, offshore wind, and hydrogen.

10/27/2021