Offshore power generation-limited life expectancy

The offshore oil industry has been well established on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf for some 20 years. In that time some hundreds of megawatts of gas turbine power generation has been installed on oil and gas production platforms. The size of power generators has gradually increased as has the electrical load on the platforms. As the production declines and new frontier areas are opened up, what further opportunities are there for the power generation industry? This paper looks at how the development of platform power system design has changed over the years and presents one future scenario that may not include any power generation on the platform itself but will use underwater DC power cables from the shore