Improving Centralized Offshore Power Generation Design with Petri Net-Based Availability and Reliability Analysis

Abstract The offshore industry has actively sought technological solutions that reduce CO2 emissions from platform operations. One of the possible solutions being studied is the implementation of Power Hubs, which would generate electricity and distribute it to nearby platforms. Unlike the traditional approach, in which the electricity is generated in the platform for its operation, centralizing such generation via Power Hubs can make the process more efficient, reducing CO2 emissions. However, such a configuration increases the complexity of the operation and can impact the reliability and availability of platforms connected to the Power Hub. Therefore, this work aims to perform reliability and availability estimates of this type of operational configuration and compare it with the traditional offshore operation to quantify the difference between them. Various kinds of Power Hubs configurations were also analyzed to compare the results obtained. Such analyzes were performed using Generalized Stochastic Petri Nets (GSPN) models. Results show that, depending on their configurations, Power Hubs can guarantee an average availability of energy generation close to 100% even in periods of higher demand for oil and gas production.