Feasibility study "Base load current from the North Sea"

Ordering party: Technische Universität Clausthal, Inst. f. Energietechnik

Wind energy is known to be a proven technology that can help to meet increasing electricity demands in a sustainable and clean way. The use of offshore wind in the German part of the North Sea will start within the next years. Further than that the gas exploration efforts in the German part of the North Sea have led to a number of gas discoveries with a potential of around 230 Billion m3.The gas has a low calorific value due to nitrogen content of 15-70%, which implies it cannot be marketed as it would require nitrogen removal and/or blending with high calorific value gas to achieve sales quality. The German part of the North Seaxt, however has good prospects for a joint development of wind energy and the low calorific natural gas for power generation. A feasibility study is done by a group of institutes of the Technical University Clausthal.The current concept is to produce gas from the reservoir, process it on an offshore platform and generate electric power by gas firing.

Within the feasibility study OECOS GmbH is working out a rough assesment on the environmental impacts to be expected by this concept.

.