Improved load-sharing strategy for multiple turbine generators of offshore oil and gas fields with offshore wind power

To reduce carbon emissions and energy costs, oil and gas operators are advancing the collaborative development of offshore wind power and offshore oil and gas fields. Yet, traditional load-sharing strategies, designed for stable generation-load dynamics, struggle to effectively handle power fluctuations and the contradiction between the improvement of wind power utilization and the hazards of low-load operation. An improved load-sharing strategy is proposed to support the integration of intermittent wind power into offshore platforms. Firstly, a load-sharing principle at equivalent load levels is integrated into both day-ahead scheduling and intra-day dispatch to reduce the impact of frequent and large-scale power fluctuations on a single generator. Then, to avoid turbine generators continuously being operated at low load levels, a dynamic management strategy is proposed to regulate the minimum load level of turbine generators within day-ahead scheduling, mitigating the adverse impact of the long period low-load level operation on turbine generators. The proposed strategy is tested using the data of a real-world oil and gas field in Northern China. The results show that the proposed strategy reduces operating costs by up to 6.3% in summer, 9.2% in midseason, and 4.6% in winter. Meanwhile, wind power curtailment and carbon emissions are significantly reduced.