What's new in production

That is grist for another mill, but looking through OSHA-approved, distortion-free safety goggles, you can see what renewables are doing right now—serving oil and gas production.

“Review of Renewable Energy Technologies Utilized in the Oil and Gas Industry” (Choi, et. al. 2017) notes: “From a conservative point of view, renewable energy is a competitor to fossil fuels. However, recently, renewable energy is being used to extract and produce fossil fuel resources, which makes it more difficult to view them as clear competitors.”

The study is interesting. Its purpose was to research and analyze cases in which renewable energy technologies are being applied at oil and gas production sites. Cases were analyzed according to their purpose: photovoltaic, wind power, and geothermal power technology applications had the purpose of supplying electricity; whereas the application of solar thermal technology had the purpose of supplying heat.

Space prevents inclusion of examples from every renewable technology, but a few of them will illustrate the point.

Photovoltaic system powers cathodic protection. Kyocera Solar is operating 7.7-, 3.9-, and 6.25-kW PV systems at the Louisiana Bayou oil field in Louisiana. The PV systems include PV modules, mounting structures, controller (with integrated solar charge regulation), storage batteries, and system enclosure. The electricity produced from the PV system is used to prevent the oil pipeline from corroding, using the cathodic protection technique. The results from recent studies indicated that corrosion of transport pipes significantly affects the production and transportation of oil and gas. A cathodic protection method that incorporates a PV system promises to be a solution to these corrosion problems.

Wind power supplies 30% of platform demand. Scottish and Southern Energy, an English energy company, and Canadian oil exploration company Talisman Energy, made a joint investment to build a wind power system at Beatrice oil field in the North Sea. Beatrice field sits 15 mi off the northeastern coast of Scotland and started commercial production in 1981. Beatrice comprises three offshore platforms. Beatrice Alpha is an oil production plant, in the center of the oil field. Two 5-MW wind turbines were built near the Beatrice Alpha platform. The electricity produced from these wind turbines supplies about 30% of the total electricity demand of the Beatrice Alpha platform.

Solar thermal system used in EOR. McKittrick oil field (see photo on this page), operated by Berry Petroleum (which was spun off by Linn Energy in 2017) is in western California, and produces approximately 1,300 bpd of crude oil. Berry launched the solar thermal EOR project with Glass Point Solar to apply the EOR technique to this field. This project installed solar thermal collectors—approximately 13,388 m²—at the field, to collect sunlight. The sunlight was used to boil water and produce high-pressure steam. The high-pressure steam was used to apply the EOR technique. This project implemented the enclosed trough technique of Glass Point Solar for the first time. This technique allowed installation of solar thermal collectors in oil fields with a lot of sand and dust. A lightweight mirror was installed in the structure, and an automatic directing device was mounted on the mirror to focus the sunlight to a designated spot.

Nexus of renewables and oil and gas. Although not a traditional oilfield service company, U.S.-based Solarcraft offers an example of the nexus of renewables and oil and gas, from something like a service-company perspective. The company is a provider of, among other things, solar-energy systems combining solar panels and batteries, for applications such as SCADA, wellsite automation, and field instrumentation. The company’s “Solar Insolation” map of the continental U.S. is an interesting peek at their “Typical Winter Peak Sun Hour” rating. (The company says this is a more useful number than the Average Annual Peak Sun Hour rating.) So, U.S. land operators will be happy to know that on a scale of 0.5 to 4.5, the Permian basin is at a bright and shiny 3.5.

BP claims to have the largest, operated, renewable energy business of any major oil and gas company. In the U.S., its renewable assets include 14 onshore wind farms, located from Hawaii to Pennsylvania. The company’s U.S. wind farms have a gross generating capacity of 2,259 MW. That’s enough electricity to power all the homes in a city the size of Philadelphia.

That’s a substantial stake in the ground, but there’s a lot of space between 0% and 100%. In the eyes of Your Humble Observer, few things ever get replaced completely. New things are introduced, but only the balance of new and old changes. Here’s one nearby example: in 2018, the Houston Police Department still uses horses—as they did in the Wild West 1800s—but not as many of them, and for tasks they’re better suited to than cars.

Just as gasoline-powered trucks drive horses to deployments, renewables and oil and gas production will be cooperating, in an ever-evolving balance, for a long time to come.