Application of alternative energies in the Australian offshore sector

Fossil fuel is not practically renewable and therefore the world is at risk of fossil fuel depletion. This gives urgency to investigate alternative energies, especially for industries that rely entirely on energies for operations, such as offshore industry. The use of alternative energies in this industry has been in place for a while now. This paper discusses the application of various alternative energy sources to assist powering the Goodwyn Alpha (A) Platform, located on the North West Shelf (NWS) of Australia. The three alternative energy sources under discussion are: wind, wave and solar. The extraction devices used are the Horizontal and Vertical-Axis Wind Turbines - for wind; Pelamis, PowerBuoy and Wave Dragon - for wave; and the solar parabolic dish of SunBeam and Photovoltaic (PV) cells of SunPower - for solar. These types of devices are installed within the same offshore platform area. Technical, environmental and economic aspects are taken into consideration before the best selection is made. The results showed that PowerBuoy used for wave energy, is the best device to be used on offshore platforms where operators could save up to 9% of power; $603,083 of natural gas; and 10,848 tonnes of CO₂ per year.