CPG Subsea Power Plant – When solutions come together

As oil and gas production will most likely go down in the next decades and CPG is waiting for deployement in a wide scale, future applications should be investigated on a wide scale.

CPG (CO2 plume geothermal system) is a great way to improve efficiency and feasibility of geothermal power plants. Subsea Compressors made by MAN Energy Solutions are used to improve efficiency in oil and gas production. At the first glance these are two technologies which have no link.

But putting both things together results in a new approach to produce sustainable energy for offshore use. A turbine necessary to run a CPG plant is a technology not very different to a compressor. Feasibility was positively checked by the experts of MAN Energy Solutions. Problems like increased necessary steam temperature in high pressure environments - like the deep sea - in classical geothermal power production are no object with CPG.

Works from Martin O. Saar et al. showed the great potential of CPG onshore. A use offshore or even subsea is closely linked to potential apllications and the comparison with other technologies to produce sustainable energy for offshore use.

Possible future consumers like fuel production (H2, methanol, ammonium), subsea data centers, CO2 storage or desalination plants can benefit from a sustainable and reliable local power source.

The right LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity) is the final paramter to be met. Investigations showed that with the right side conditions a competitive LCOE compared to other offshore baseload capable power plants like OTEC (ocean thermal energy conversion), or wave, tidal, wind and solar with energy storage is possible.