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Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Alternative Power Source For Subsea Installation

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Depletion in oil and gas reservoir and reduction in shallow water reservoir has driven Oil and Gas Exploration move from shallow water (less than 100m water depth) exploration to depth water exploration. Depth water exploration would required the used of subsea wellhead, subsea collection manifold, Remotely-Operated Vehicle (ROV), flexible flowline, Floating Production and Storage Unit (FPSO), Floating Liquefaction Natural Gas unit (FLNG), etc.

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There are minimum power driven equipment in subsea installation as subsea power generation is still under research level. One of the recent development is to convert the seawater current into power with a special device, named VIVACE (Vortex-Induced Vibrations for Aquatic Clean Energy). VIVACE is utilizing a fluid movement phenomena called vortex-induced vibrations (VIV).



Fluid flow around a rounded or cylinder-shaped object, vortices or eddies will form on opposite sides of the rounded or cylinder-shaped object. As alternating vortices form above and below the rounded or cylinder-shaped object, exerting force perpendicular by the flow will drive the rounded or cylinder-shaped object to move. As the rounded or cylinder-shaped object cylinder is attach to a springs, counter force would cause it oscillates and convert mechanical energy to electricity. This technology is being commercialized by Vortex Hydro Energy and a paper on "VIVACE - A new concept in generation of clean and renewable energy from fluid flow" is published in Journal of Offshore Mechanics and Arctic Engineering.

Below are some demonstrations clips...





VIVACE converter model operating in the Low-turbulence Free Surface Re-circulating Water Tunnel
Flow Speed: 1.6 knots (0.823 m/s)




Lab picture sequence generated by Williamson


This technology could be considered in subsea power generation and possibly leads to employment of motor driven equipment in subsea installation.

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