British-Borneo buys into U.K. wave energy

British-Borneo Petroleum Syndicate plc, London, has taken a 19.73% interest in a company that is pioneering development of wave power technology. British-Borneo, London investment group 3i plc, and private investors have acquired equity stales in Applied Research & Technology Ltd. (ART), Inverness, through a combined investment of £3 million ($5 million). ART has developed three different wave power units, of which two incorporate Wells turbines to generate electric power from air

Oct. 19, 1998

4 min read

British-Borneo Petroleum Syndicate plc, London, has taken a 19.73% interest in a company that is pioneering development of wave power technology.

British-Borneo, London investment group 3i plc, and private investors have acquired equity stales in Applied Research & Technology Ltd. (ART), Inverness, through a combined investment of £3 million ($5 million).

Design concepts

ART has developed three different wave power units, of which two incorporate Wells turbines to generate electric power from air displaced by an oscillating water column.

The turbine was developed by Alan Wells, a former university professor who is now a director of ART. The three wave generators are ART proprietary concepts.

ART's Ocean Swell Powered Renewable Energy (Osprey) concept took shape as an inshore wave power generator, which was installed on the Scottish coast and was lost after storm damage (OGJ, Sept. 4, 1995, p. 46).

Jim Lee-Young, U.K. continental shelf commercial manager at British-Borneo, said: "Now ART has refined the Osprey design. It is ready to go and is potentially of use in breakwaters and harbor schemes."

A second ART concept, designated the Limpet, is currently being designed for the Scottish island of Islay, where it will be built into seashore cliffs. It will have capacity to generate 500 kw of electric power.

A 75 kw Limpet experimental unit has been in successful operation at the site for 10 years but will be decommissioned when the full-scale unit is brought into operation next year.

The Limpet will supply electricity to the Scottish grid, and ART has applied for connection under the Scottish Renewables Order scheme.

Offshore unit

The most attractive of ART's concepts to British-Borneo is an offshore wave power unit called Powerbuoy, which is currently at the tank-trials stage and is being refined for development. The Powerbuoy is a floating offshore wave power structure, for which several concepts are being evaluated. The designs cannot be revealed, however, until patents are secured.

Lee-Young said the minimum depth required for deployment of the Powerbuoy is 150 ft, while there is theoretically no maximum: "If we can install tension leg platforms in thousands of feet of water, there's no reason we can't do the same with the Powerbuoy." Lee-Young reckons the Powerbuoy can generate several megawatts of power, depending on location.

One potential use of the Powerbuoy is to provide power to small oil and gas installations, where conventional gas or diesel generation would be prohibitively expensive. Another option is provision of power to installations in countries such as Norway where carbon dioxide taxation makes offshore power generation a thing to be avoided.

Then there is the potential to install Powerbuoy units above subsea satellite installations, enabling step-out distances to mother platforms to be independent of power transmission limitations.

In an earlier technology deal, British-Borneo signed an exclusive agreement for development and application of the SeaStar tension leg platform concept, designed by Atlantia Corp., Houston. British-Borneo developed Morpeth field in 1,700 ft of water in the Gulf of Mexico using the SeaStar technology (OGJ, Jan. 20, 1997, p. 42). Now the operator is developing Allegheny field in 3,000 ft using SeaStar.

"Our deepwater U.S. operation is built on access to this low-cost development concept," said Lee-Young. "We are also pursuing other innovative technological building blocks, including smart wells. "Last year we started to look into other technologies that could bring us commercial advantage. We looked into wave power, and the more we looked, the more we liked it."

British-Borneo sees the Powerbuoy concept as offering potential commercial benefits in marginal field developments. Lee-Young said the company views it as a complementary technology to SeaStar for small fields.

For the time being, said Lee-Young, British-Borneo is working on Powerbuoy as part of a "tool kit" for marginal oil and gas developments.

Power generation is not seen as a core business for British-Borneo in the short term. ART is marketing all three wave power concepts independently for renewable electricity generation.