Chevron Relying on Wind Power to Run Offshore Oil Rigs

Take a look at offshore oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and you'll see a curious sight: wind turbines on the platforms, hundreds of them. The one in the picture is on a Chevron rig.

Chevron and other oil companies are using the power from the micro-generating turbines to run the nerve center of oil rig operations - called SCADA in industry jargon. Oil rig SCADA systems used to run off of inefficient thermal electric generators, which burned oil and then converted the heat to electricity. No more.

SCADA is an acronym that stands for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition, and refers to the system that collects data from various sensors on the rigs and sends it to a central computer which automatically manages operations. Here's how vital SCADA is to oil company operations and competitiveness:

When a corporation erects platforms in a given area, competing oil companies will lease adjacent areas and tap the same oil deposit located below.

Due to the constant rivalry for resources, once a platform is pumping gas and oil, any downtime at the platform means a loss not only of production during the downtime but also of a resource.

To maximize productivity of each oil platform, all aspects of production involving monitoring and control of repetitive functions need to automate, thus allowing the platform to operate around a central control point.

That central control point is SCADA, an awfully important function that has to depend on a reliable source of power. That's why oil companies are relying on power that will be there, even when the oil runs out: offshore wind.

Has oil become so expensive now that even oil companies are opting for lower-cost renewable energy, when it matters most?

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