Renewable energies in the Offshore industry are the sector experiencing the most significant growth. Technology adapts common land-based energy installations to the marine environment. Common examples are storage, distribution, and energy transformation systems.
The configurations with a more mature design are systems on the sea surface anchored to the seabed with auxiliary structures in fixed, non-floating installations. Placing storage and transformation systems on the seabed would avoid support structures, although it requires addressing studies, designs, and integrations to optimise the new submerged installations.
This article explores the potential development of underwater infrastructures for different sectors, beyond the traditional Oil & Gas, and considers both alternative applications and the associated technological challenges and timelines for each case. To this end, technological factors are analysed, and environmental, site, design, accessibility, and maintainability aspects are considered to reliably operate the two submerged installations analysed.
Read the full paper here (in Spanish):