The Assessment of Offshore Wind Energy as a source of Electrical Energy for Offshore Oil and Gas Platforms of the Caspian Sea

The present study aims to measure the offshore wind energy at different atmosphere levels, from the surface up to the level of 200 meters, examining the wind regime for the three northern, middle and southern basins of the Caspian Sea. In this regard, the data of wind speed components of ECMWF base at a height of 10m above the sea level with a spatial resolution of 0.125 and time step of 6-hours, collected for the years 2005 to 2014, then, using Pyferret software, the monthly and yearly average of wind speed and energy for the three Caspian basins was investigated; Afterwards, the potential of this renewable resource was evaluated for some of the most important fields in each basin. The findings indicate that the middle and northern basins with an average annual energy of 1.4 and 1.6  , respectively, at an indicator height of 10m are suitable for providing part of the electrical energy of the offshore oil and gas platforms in terms of benefiting from the maximum wind energy so that this amount of energy increases as the sea level boosts. The results of the comparison of the Siemens SWT-4.0-120 wind turbine output for four offshore oil and gas fields showed that the Kashgan field located in the Northern Basin has the highest output power with an average of 484.88  while the Guneshli, Sardar-e-Jangal and Inky-e-mor fields with an output power of 336.6.155.6 and 119.4 are placed in the next ranks, respectively.