New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) has signed an agreement with UK player Premier Oil to study the feasibility of using renewable energy technology for the decommissioning of oil and gas projects in the North Sea.

Under their partnership, OPT - a wave power technology company - will look at using its PB3 PowerBuoy , technology which helps provide reliable communications offshore, in the fossil fuels market, it said.

OPT will work todetermine the viability of using the PB3 for "monitoring and guarding remaining wells and subsea equipment after removal of a floating production, storage and offloading vessel and prior to subsea decommissioning and/or well plugging & abandonment operations".

The study will also evaluate the PB3’s ability to monitor well pressures and temperatures by connecting to subsea control modules.

“We believe our PowerBuoy could enable Premier Oil and other operators to enhance the decommissioning planning process and at the same time ensure the safety of other users of the sea,” said George Kirby, chief executive officer of OPT.

“The PB3 could potentially serve as an alternative to an on-site guard vessel, aiming to improve health, safety and environmental statistics and reducing operational costs while incorporating clean power into their offshore operations," he said.

If the feasibility study is successful, the next step could be to prove the solution through a North Sea trial deployment in 2018.

One of OPT’s first devices of this kind, the PowerBuoy 150kW, passed operational checks of its structure, mooring system and power-generation potential with flying colours in the Moray Firth, northeast Scotland.

Operating in 60 metres of water in extreme North Sea conditions, the 300-tonne PB150 produced at peaks of more than 400kW during testing, while a steady electrical flow of 45kW was generated from swells as low as two metres.

Since, after successful trials of a 150kW model, OPT deployed the US’s first utility-scale wave-energy converter (WEC) off the Oregon.

Transition

Offshore oil decom role explored for OPT wave power’