What could save the oil industry’s plummeting price crisis? Perhaps wind-powered water injection could save the oil and gas industry. Allegedly, the water injection will assist with oil recovery in “offshore oil fields.” The project to enforce this new system is called WIN WIN which directly translates into WINd-powered Water INjection. How it would work is to build floating wind turbines which will supply power to water injection technology that would include pumps and “basic water injection” according to DNV GL, who were the initiators of the project.
Gas and oil industry heads signed their companies up for the project of building floating turbines to test out the feasibility of the project for the future of making oil and gas cleaner and more efficient. The companies that took part were: ExxonMobil, ENI Norge, Nexen Petroleum UK Ltd., Statoil, VNG Norge, PG Flow Solutions and ORE Catapult.
Remi Eriksen, Group President, and CEO of DNV GL, said: “The WIN WIN project showcases that the oil and gas industry can become a creative force in solving the world’s energy trilemma by driving the development of reliable, clean and affordable technologies. This is a win for both the oil and gas and for the wind power industries.”
The company says that the wind turbines handling the water injection in a stand-alone system could completely change up the game and get more and more companies changing their ways and producing with more cleanliness. It would improve environmental performance and reduce costs, whilst avoiding emissions, says DNV GL. The system is also fully automated and powered by lithium-ion battery banks. The wind turbine can also be transported to different wells if needs be.
“Recent developments in floating wind turbines will now facilitate a new era where renewable energy is integrated with oil and gas operations. The first step in that journey is the WIN WIN concept,” said DNV GL in a promotional video.
DNV GL has spent time developing off-shore wind turbines, and is now assisting the oil and gas industry with these turbines that utilize a principle that they have coined called ‘In-Float’. It is cost effective as well, being built by automated factories, transported to quays and then towed to the site and then used to generate electricity and now more recently, used to inject water.
