In focus: Industry making strides on its journey to sustainable future

The current geopolitical crisis has been seen by many as a wake-up call and a nudge the world needed to pivot towards renewables, which are perceived as pillars of a net-zero future. In light of this, the offshore energy industry is putting the wheels into motion to step up its decarbonisation process as the world scales up its efforts to strengthen energy security with sustainability as the frontrunner in this roadmap.

Our last week’s edition shed some light on what is needed to speed up the energy transition, calling on governments and corporations to speed up the switch to clean energy. This week, we see the efforts ramping up to accomplish these goals. The key drivers in pushing for a pivotal shift to renewables that we have seen throughout the week are motivated by strengthening energy security as the industry sets its sails firmly towards low-carbon and net-zero initiatives.

Keeping energy security at the forefront, the UK government unveiled a new strategy – named British Energy Security Strategy – on Wednesday. This strategy is expected to support oil and gas projects in the North Sea and speed up the deployment of renewable energy sources while weaning the UK off expensive fossil fuels, which are subject to volatile gas prices set by international markets.

As the government in early March decided to phase out imports of Russian oil by the end of the year in response to the war in Ukraine, the new strategy provides a roadmap for marching full steam ahead with the deployment of wind, new nuclear, solar and hydrogen, whilst supporting the production of domestic oil and gas in the short term. This establishes a potential for 95 per cent of electricity to be low carbon by 2030.

Kwasi Kwarteng, Business and Energy Secretary, explained: “Scaling up cheap renewables and new nuclear, while maximising North Sea production, is the best and only way to ensure our energy independence over the coming years.”

While countries work on becoming independent from Russian oil and gas in light of the Ukraine crisis, Norway-based classification society DNV believes that rather than derailing, this will accelerate Europe’s energy transition due to fewer fossil fuels in the energy mix and lower greenhouse gas emissions. DNV’s analysis clearly shows the trend towards making low carbon energy – renewables and nuclear – will become more prominent.

In line with this, several governments – Spain, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, the United Kingdom, Estonia and Lithuania – alongside wind energy companies, grid operators, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) inked a deal earlier this week to work on accelerating the deployment of both fixed and floating offshore wind and offshore grids in Europe.

Commenting on this, Cordi O’Hara, President of National Grid Ventures, stated: “This is a critical moment for the energy industry across Europe, including the UK and Norway. We need more offshore wind to strengthen security of supply and drive decarbonisation, and we need new cutting edge technologies like hybrid interconnectors to connect wind faster and cheaper.”

After establishing targets for offshore wind – 60 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050 – back in February prior to the Ukraine war, the European Union (EU) called for an additional 30 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030 on Thursday to replace part of Russian fossil fuel imports before the end of this decade.

Even though it may occasionally seem that climate change issues have taken a backseat to battling growing concerns over energy security, we are also seeing that this geopolitical crisis has helped put the renewables in charge of spearheading the future of energy.

Although, a lot still remains to be done to increase renewable energy supplies, as recognized by AWS Ocean Energy, which believes that wave power could assist in this quest. As part of a scientific testing program for its Waveswing wave energy converter, the Scottish player started sea trials at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) earlier this week.

Discussing the potential for Waveswing, Simon Grey, CEO of AWS Ocean Energy, said: “We are convinced that the future lies in multi-absorber platforms which can achieve the scale necessary for wave power to make a significant contribution to renewable energy supplies.”

Meanwhile, despite current challenges, companies are still actively working on meeting the carbon reduction targets they have set. With this in mind, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy awarded two carbon capture and storage (CCUS) licenses – Smeaheia to Equinor and Polaris to Equinor, Horisont Energi, and Vår Energi – on Tuesday. The licences are located in the North Sea and the Barents Sea, respectively.

Norway’s energy ministry outlined within its statement that safe capture and storage of CO2 is also an enabler for developing blue hydrogen and ammonia, which can eliminate emissions from the use of gas. As a result, this ensures access to large amounts of low-carbon energy.

Pondering the appeal of CCS, Haukelidsæter Eidesen, CEO of Horisont Energi, remarked: “The CO2 quota price almost tripled in 2021, and the number of available quotas will continue to decline in the coming years to meet the 2030 climate goals in the EU. This trend makes CO2 storage commercially attractive for several industries.”

The energy industry is not alone in embracing net-zero and embarking on a decarbonisation journey as the maritime sector has been burning the midnight oil in carving out a niche for itself on this quest. Going down the industry’s lane of progress, this week shows a lot of action on this front including a cross-boundary project – EverLoNG – involving science and industry experts to accelerate the uptake of ship-based carbon capture (SBCC) by international shipping companies.

After securing $3.7 million from an EU climate action fund, the EverLoNG project – led by TNO – will assess the feasibility of CO2 capture on board two LNG-fuelled ships, which are owned and operated by project partners: TotalEnergies and Heerema Marine Contractors.

Unlike zero-emission fuels – such as ammonia and hydrogen – SBCC is one of the options being considered as a low-cost, short-term approach to decarbonising the sector. Studies will be conducted by 16 project partners from five countries – Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, the UK, and the USA – to support the development of full-chain carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) networks, connecting SBCC with CO2 transport links, geological CO2 storage and markets for CO2 use.

Amid mounting pressures over climate change and the urgent need to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy sources, there is a lot of buzz around decommissioning projects and the North Sea is making inroads in this sector.

The latest project achieved a 99 per cent rate for the combined recycling and repurposing of recovered materials with the work DOF Subsea carried out at the Repsol Sinopec’s Buchan and Hannay fields. Two of DOF Subsea’s vessels worked tirelessly to complete this project and the efforts ended up bearing fruit as only one per cent of the material was sent to landfill as a last resort.