Cost-Benefit Investigation of Offshore Wind Power Generation for Soroush Offshore Complex

Iranian offshore oil and gas platforms are mostly located in the Persian Gulf. Technical and environmental challenges resulted from an off-design running condition of processes on a platform are important issues. The weakness of strategies to stop or decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emission production rate in the Persian Gulf; which is intensively increasing, is another matter of concern. modern methods of energy generation from available renewable potentials near offshore platforms are suggested. Integration of renewable energy converters with offshore oil and gas platforms can solve both problems with machinery and environment to an acceptable extent. In this study, the economics of the Soroush offshore complex is subjected to two scenarios. The first scenario defines the present condition in which the total power demand of the complex is supplied by burning the associated extracted natural gas on board the platform in its thermal power plant and the second scenario considers a wind farm located near Bardekhun in Bushehr province to be connected to the complex power network and shares its renewable source generated power with the platform. The economics of both scenarios are compared in terms of total annual power cost. The second scenario shows more beneficial, although there are some conservative assumptions included due to a shortage of data and limitations.

Keywords:

Soroush oilfield , Renewable energy , wind power , environmental pollution , the Persian Gulf