Charo Oil Field Microgrid / Solar / BESS

The Charo Oil Field owned by Santos in Cooper Basin required a new power generation solution to operate a number of electric driven artificial lift oil wells.  Santos sought an alternative centralised power system solution to increase reliability and moderate maintenance/operation cost associated with distributed crude oil generators at individual well sites.

Initial load studies undertaken by GPA indicated highly cyclic load associated with the operation of beam pumps and high harmonic current distortion levels for the oilfield loads.

GPA was engaged to develop a microgrid solution to interconnect the sites via overhead line with a hybrid power station incorporating embedded diesel, solar generation and energy storage to optimise the generation requirements. GPA provided system level engineering design, power station design and electrical power logging services.

The Charo micro-grid hybrid power station includes:

• 100kWAC of solar generation
• 180kVA, 438kWh Battery Energy Storage System
• 2x450kVA and 1x275kVA diesel synchronous generators
• 200A Harmonic Filter and power factor control unit

The new power station utilises 11kV HV infrastructure to provide power to:

• 11 electrically driven Beam pumps
• 2 future electrically driven Beam pumps
• Water flood pump facility
• Oil shipping pump facility

The engineering work provided by GPA included:

• Load data gathering via data loggers and detailed analysis to develop load patterns
• HOMER Pro Modelling
• Power system load flow, fault level, stability, protection and earthing design
• Develop Microgrid control philosophy
• Microgrid Transient Simulations
• Reactive power support and network harmonics review
• Develop equipment specifications and review vendor offers
• Design of hybrid power station with embedded solar and BESS
• Design of 11kV overhead line and LV distribution for well site connections
• Design of a containerised switchroom to house new equipment associated with the microgrid
• Power station Equipment footing design (Switchroom, BESS, generators, cable ladders)
• General site Civil scope of works and site layouts
• Construction scopes of work
• Factory Acceptance Testing of Switchroom
• Commissioning and Site Acceptance Testing
• SCADA and control system integration to the Santos Cooper Basin SCADA system
• Ongoing engineering support

The new power system efficiently meets the variable energy demands of the oil field, utilising diesel generators, renewable energy and energy storage while maintaining stable power system. Centralised microgrid has reduced the cost to power the entire facility, while system reliability has increased.