Norwegian offshore energy contractor DeepOcean has teamed up with fellow advisory and research firm Akvaplan-niva, a subsidiary of the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), to utilise remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and unmanned glider vehicles (USVs) to perform environmental studies for offshore wind and oil and gas developments.
As part of the collaboration agreement, the two parties will work towards combining the field operations of DeepOcean’s autonomous vehicles with Akvaplan-niva’s environmental data collection services. The partnership will also look to utilise Akvaplan-niva’s unmanned autonomous glider vehicles commercially for use in environmental studies. The deal will also see DeepOcean share environmental data collected during the company’s ROV operations with Akvaplan-niva, for use by the wider research community.
“Both the offshore wind and offshore oil and gas industry could benefit from even more cost-efficient environmental assessment services. Combining sensor technology with unmanned and autonomous vessels could be one way of solving this. Compared to today’s solutions, this approach can substantially reduce use of fossil fuels and associated CO2 emissions,” said Andries Ferla, ocean solutions and technology director at DeepOcean.
“Today’s advanced technology in robotics and digital solutions allow the convergence between the subsea operations and environmental services. The advantages for customers are multiple, it will reduce costs, CO2 emmission and personnel risk, and it will increase data resolution drastically,” added Dr. Lionel Camus, manager of digital solutions at Akvaplan-niva.
