Energy supermajor Shell has joined the Renewables for Subsea Power (RSP) collaborative project currently powering subsea equipment off the coast of Orkney through a combination of wave power and subsea energy storage.
They will now join project leads Mocean Energy and Verlume, alongside industry players Baker Hughes, Serica Energy, Harbour Energy, Transmark Subsea, PTTEP, TotalEnergies, and the Net Zero Technology Centre (NZTC).
The new investment in the project was done via the Shell Technology – Marine Renewable Program, a marine renewable energy tech developer aiming to build critical energy infrastructure for the Blue Economy to grow and thrive. Joining RSP offers Shell access to all data and results from the current test programme, alongside a feasibility assessment of the use of RSP technology at a location of their choice.
The $2.5m initiative, which is currently nearing 12 months in the water, has connected the Mocean Energy – Blue X wave energy converter with the Verlume-developed Halo underwater battery storage system.
The fully operational project located 5km off Scotland is used to show how green technologies can be combined to provide reliable low-carbon power and communications to subsea equipment.
“Shell’s investment and the opportunity to continue to test in a real-world environment will help to further progress the technologies,” said Graeme Rogerson, head of Net Zero Technology at NZTC.
The Orkney deployment is the third phase of the RSP project. In 2021, the consortium invested $2m into phase two of the programme – the integration of the core technologies in an onshore test environment. In 2021, Mocean Energy’s Blue X prototype underwent a programme of at-sea testing where it generated first power.
