Siemens to erect shoreside power supply system for offshore platform in the Barents Sea  + + +  Fifty-percent reduction of CO2 emissions

17.12.2010   + + +  The Goliat floating offshore platform for the production, storage and offloading of oil and gas north of Norway in the Barents Sea will not, as is customary practice, be supplied with power generated by onboard gas turbines and generators but from the shore via a 106-kilometer-long subsea cable. This will result in a 50-percent reduction of CO2 emissions. Siemens Energy will supply a turnkey shoreside power supply system, which essentially comprises a substation located in Hammerfest in northern Norway, overhead transmission lines, buried cable and a state-of-the-art reactive-power compensation system. Purchaser is the oil and gas company Eni Norge based in Stavanger, Norway. The shoreside power supply to the platform is scheduled to come on line in 2012; the start of production in the Goliat field is planned for late 2013.

A floating (FPSO) platform like Goliat is used for the production, storage and offloading of oil and gas. Whereas the power for platforms of this kind is customarily generated by onboard gas turbines and generators, the Goliat platform will in the future have a shoreside power supply. This will reduce CO2 emissions by half compared to conventional technology.

For the shoreside power supply system Siemens will build the new Hyggevatn substation located two kilometers from the center of the Hammerfest municipailty. It will be connected to the regional power supply network via a 132-kV overhead transmission line and will supply both the Goliat platform and the smaller local network in Hammerfest. For this purpose Siemens will replace existing overhead transmission lines with a new line between the new substation and an existing one in Hammerfest. Siemens will also supply the buried cable from the Hyggevatn substation to an underground connecting point on the coast, from where the subsea cable will be routed to the platform.

For stabilization of the voltage in the high-voltage network and for reactive power compensation in the 106-kilometer-long subsea cable Siemens will supply its latest SVC technology: The SVC Plus (Static Var Compensator) reactive power compensation system operates on the basis of voltage-sourced converter (VSC) technology, with continuously variable control provided by high-power transistors (IGBTs). The core of SVC Plus, an advanced Statcom (static synchronous compensator), is its modular multilevel converter technology. In contrast to other self-commutated converter topologies the voltage waveshape generated by SVC Plus is nearly sinusoidal thanks to the multilevel technology used. This makes the low-frequency harmonic filters necessary in solutions used to date superfluous and substantially reduces the space requirements for the overall unit.

Energy-efficient shoreside power supply systems sind part of Siemens’ Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2010, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about EUR28 billion, making Siemens the world’s largest supplier of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 270 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO2 emissions of the megacities Hong Kong, London, New York, Tokyo, Delhi and Singapore.

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The Siemens Energy Sector is the world’s leading supplier of a complete spectrum of products, services and solutions for the generation, transmission and distribution of power and for the extraction, conversion and transport of oil and gas. In fiscal 2010 (ended September 30), the Energy Sector had revenues of approximately EUR25.5 billion and received new orders totaling more than EUR30.1 billion and posted a profit of more than EUR3.6 billion. On September 30, 2010, the Energy Sector had a work force of more than 88,000. Further information is available at: www.siemens.com/energy

Media Relations: Dietrich Biester
Phone: +49 9131 18-4974
E-mail: dietrich.biester@siemens.com
Siemens AG
Energy Sector – Power Transmission Division
Freyeslebenstr. 1, 91058 Erlangen, Germany