RTE international’s expertise to support Equinor’s offshore project
Equinor has called on RTE international for its Johan Sverdrup project, one of Norway’s most ambitious industrial projects.
Johan Sverdrup is one of the five largest oil fields on the Norwegian continental shelf, representing one of the most important industrial projects in Norway over the next 50 years. To reduce offshore greenhouse-gas emissions, the field will be operated by electrical power generated onshore which will be transmitted through two high-voltage direct current (HVDC) interconnections using Voltage-Sourced Converter (VSC) technology.
The HVDC links are provided by two different manufacturers, which will be used in parallel operation and will supply an offshore grid. As a result, Equinor (the operator of the Johan Sverdrup field) has asked RTE international to perform studies in order to ensure that any interaction phenomena does not risk the safety of the electrical supply.
Since early 2018, we have been supporting Equinor in carrying out PSCAD ElectroMagnetic Transient (EMT) studies in order to assess the interoperability issues associated with the parallel operation of these two HVDC links.
With the stakes being high, Equinor recently decided to purchase and host control replicas of the two HVDC systems, as well as a real-time simulator in the RTE International real-time lab. Based on our experience in multi-vendor and multi-infeed HVDC schemes, and given our experience in France and worldwide, we will perform EMT interaction studies, to ensure that the control and protection systems to be implemented on site do not create unexpected interactions that will impact the power supply of the Johan Sverdrup field.
The parallel operation of the two HVDC-VSC links is expected to be commissioned in 2022 and we are glad to be part of this project, which represents a world-first in the field of HVDC.
Equinor is an international energy company present in more than 30 countries worldwide, including several of the world’s most important oil and gas provinces. It is the largest operator in Norway, one of the world’s largest offshore operators, and a growing force in renewables.