Abstract
As oil and gas operators ramp up their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint, more and more renewable energy projects will be constructed adjacent to pipeline infrastructure and facilities. As part of this effort, a large North American pipeline Operator, with over 150,000 km of combined liquids and gas pipelines, is installing three solar farms connected into existing pump stations as a pilot project. The Operator also has seven additional solar sites already in progress and plans to install many more in multiple phases over the next few years.
These solar farms can involve the installation of hundreds to thousands of bare steel piles along with additional grounding, which could result in tens to hundreds of amps of cathodic protection current drain and compromise the corrosion protection of the Operator’s assets. Additionally, the solar farm could potentially introduce alternating current (AC) and direct current (DC) interference risks, both under normal operation and fault conditions. This paper explores the various risks, and discusses cathodic protection (CP) design, monitoring and interference mitigation strategies that can be implemented to address these risks.
