(PN) China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) signed an agreement for two research projects on renewable energies offshore, with funding of R$ 16 million. With a duration of three years, the research will have the participation of more than thirty people, from four different Coppe laboratories, who will work in several areas, including hydrodynamics, aerodynamics, structural, power control, oceanography, meteorology, cost estimation, optimization, and artificial intelligence.
The first project will focus on the study of floating wind turbines at depths between 60 and 150 meters. “We are looking for floating wind systems that are competitive in both performance and energy cost. We will evaluate the performance of structures with a degree of technological maturity (TRL) greater than 4 and construction methods that can make floating platforms more competitive”, explained Professor Segen Estefen, from the Ocean Engineering Program (PEnO) and coordinator of the Group of Renewable Energies in the Ocean (GERO).
PEnO/Coppe professor Milad Shadman, also a GERO researcher, explains that this project will focus on the evaluation of turbines in intermediate waters in the South, Southeast and Northeast, where the winds are stronger. The studies will involve the coupling of aerodynamic, hydrodynamic, mooring line loads and also structural analysis.
The second project will deal with the decarbonization of oil and gas activities in the pre-salt region, at depths between 500 and 2,500 meters, using the concept of a hybrid park with wind, wave and solar sources. The research will focus on installations of wind, wave and floating solar hybrid parks, involving coupled analysis of the aerodynamics and hydrodynamics of the turbines, evaluation of the structural behavior, and the performance of mooring lines in ultra-deep waters.
Currently, the FPSO platforms are powered by natural gas turbines, and the proposal is to begin a process of decarbonizing the energy supply of both these platforms and the subsea production systems. As the renewable energies to be used are intermittent, the project will evaluate the use of batteries for the stabilization of the electricity supply. The researchers consider the project to be quite daring to contribute to the decarbonization of oil and gas production in offshore fields, which are usually productive for more than 25 years.
Milad considers it a great challenge to install floating systems in deep water. “The mooring line issue is very important when we are talking about depths greater than 2,000m. These lines can be of different materials, chain, polyester, synthetic material. Lines should be chosen that have sufficient strength and do not increase the load on the floating system too much. As the wave converter system is relatively small compared to wind converters, with buoys measuring around five meters in diameter and weighing around 50 tons, an alternative being evaluated is the use of shared anchoring for the different wind conversion modules. , waves and solar”, explains the Coppe professor.
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