Offshore energy platforms in Australia operate as isolated power systems, typically relying on gas turbine generators (GTGs) under an N + 1 spinning-reserve philosophy. While this ensures reliability, it forces GTGs to run at partial load, reducing thermal efficiency and increasing fuel consumption, emissions, and maintenance costs. This study examines an offshore platform equipped with four SOLAR Centaur T50 gas turbines and evaluates the brownfield integration of battery energy storage systems (BESS) as a substitute for spinning reserve, enabling a shift to an N + BESS configuration. Simulation-based transient stability analysis was performed using DIgSILENT PowerFactory to validate system performance under GTG outage scenarios. Under the proposed configuration, GTG load factors improve from ~60% to over 90%, reducing fuel consumption by approximately 28% annually and lowering maintenance costs by ~33%. Economic analysis demonstrates that these operational savings, around 11.28 million AUD/year, offset the estimated BESS CAPEX of 19.8 million AUD within a payback period of ~1.75 years, delivering a positive net present value of 56.8 million AUD over a 10-year horizon. Design constraints, including space, weight, fire safety, and cybersecurity, are considered to ensure compliance with offshore standards. These findings demonstrate that BESS is a technically viable and economically advantageous solution for decarbonising offshore assets and improving operational efficiency.
Stefan Berbece (Wed,) studied this question.