Santos oil well pump in Cooper Basin runs on solar power and battery installed by AGL
Can oil and solar work together? You bet they can, say Santos and AGL which are using solar and batteries for a cost and environmental gain in the remote Cooper Basin.
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It’s a mixed partnership for the future — in a world-first, solar energy backed by batteries is being used to power the extraction of oil in the remote Cooper Basin.
AGL has installed the arrays to run Santos oil pumps 24/7. Traditionally, the pumps would burn crude oil.
“We’ve created Australia’s first oil well running on solar and battery, off grid,” Santos managing director Kevin Gallagher said.
“There are more than 200 existing pumps across the Cooper Basin that could be covered and ultimately Santos aims to use solar power as the standard energy source for new onshore oil wells.
“Converting oil well pumps to solar power will deliver environmental and commercial benefits by reducing crude oil consumption, long distance fuel haulage and emissions.”
AGL chief customer officer Christine Corbett said the first 20 sites had been converted with 1.2MW of solar panels and more than 2MWh of batteries.
“We’re proud to have worked with this leading Australian energy company by converting ‘beam pumps’ on oil wells to run on clean, renewable energy,” Ms Corbett said.
AGL’s head of delivery operations Brendan Weinert said the project was a world-first in creating a fully autonomous, off-grid solar and battery system.
“The solar and battery combination was sized to ensure continual operation 24 hours a day in some of Australia’s harshest climates,” he said.
Previously, solar has been used to supplement power supply or in situations with a low load but not as a complete system with batteries for pumps which do the heavy lifting of hauling up oil from underground.
The federal Australian Renewable Energy Agency provided $4.2 million toward the $16 million project.
ARENA said if all 200 sites were converted across South Australia and Queensland, as well as the environmental benefit, Santos would save about 140 barrels of oil a day which had been used to power the pumps.