TotalEnergies to Supply Renewable Energy to Culzean Platform

TotalEnergies, the global integrated energy company based in France, on Thursday announced the launch of a pilot project consisting in a floating wind turbine to supply renewable power to Culzean offshore platform in the UK North Sea, thus pioneering an innovative decarbonisation scheme.

The 3 MW floating wind turbine will be located 2 km west of the Culzean platform, 220 km off the eastern coast of Scotland.

This turbine, expected to be fully operational by end 2025, will supply around 20% of Culzean’s power requirement, thereby reducing its GHG emissions. The turbine will be installed on a modular, light semi-submersible floater hull designed by Ocergy, allowing for fast assembly and optimized costs.

Marie-Noelle Semeria, Chief Technology Officer at TotalEnergies, said that this innovative pilot project is aimed at proving the concept of hybridisation of power generation on an offshore facility, by integrating the generation of renewable electricity from a floating wind turbine with the existing power generation from gas turbines. It also aims at qualifying a promising floater design for the future of floating offshore wind.

Part of INTOG

This pilot project was selected in Crown Estate Scotland’s Innovation and Targeted Oil & Gas (INTOG) leasing round, designed to encourage and support the use of offshore wind energy to directly supply offshore oil & gas platforms.

The INTOG process allowed developers to apply for seabed rights to develop offshore wind projects that either reduce emissions from the North Sea oil and gas sector – by supplying renewable electricity directly to oil and gas infrastructure (TOG) – or consist of small-scale innovative projects of 100 MW or less.  

The proposed projects are for up to 449 MW of capacity for these innovative projects and up to 5 GW for TOG projects. Crown Estate Scotland will offer a seabed lease of 25 years for IN projects and 50 years for TOG projects.

TotalEnergies in UK

TotalEnergies has been present in the UK for more than 60 years, employing more than 1,800 people across the energy value chain.

As one of the country’s leading oil and gas operators, the company operates around 30% of the UK Continental Shelf’s gas production, with average daily production of 142,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in 2023 in company share.

TotalEnergies is deploying its Integrated Power strategy in the UK, which combines renewable power production and flexible power generation capacities.

Its renewable portfolio in the county includes 1.1 GW of gross installed capacity (Seagreen offshore wind farm) and 4.5 GW under development. It was complemented in 2024 by the acquisition of gas-fired power plants (CCGT) with total output of 1.3 GW.

The company is one of the UK’s largest suppliers of gas and electricity to businesses and the public sector and also offers EV charging solutions and markets petroleum products including lubricants, aviation fuel, bitumen and specialty fluids.