Behind Bilfinger & Schneider’s Autonomous Offshore Power Rig

For decades, getting power and control signals out to remote offshore oil and gas wells has meant laying 'umbilicals', the thick bundles of hydraulic and electrical lines that tether subsea equipment back to a manned platform.

They are expensive to install and carbon-intensive to run, but Schneider Electric and German industrial services firm Bilfinger think they might have found a solution.

The two companies have spent the past year in the North Sea, developing the control system behind a floating buoy that can generate its own power and runs without anyone on board.

What is a Normally Unmanned Installation?

The project is built around a Normally Unmanned Installation, or NUI, a kind of offshore asset that is designed to operate without a permanent crew.

These pieces of equipment have to be both sophisticated and durable, capable of working and surviving in rugged conditions at sea.

Bilfinger was appointed by Buoyant Production Technologies, a subsidiary of Crondall Energy, to design a system capable of supporting autonomous operations in remote locations like this.

These wells, often called marginal fields, are reservoirs too small or too costly to justify a full platform and umbilical connection themselves.

Bilfinger’s autonomous buoy is intended as a cheaper, lower-carbon alternative for exactly this kind of site.

Since its deployment in late 2025 it has logged 1,000 hours of autonomous operation without a hiccup or incident.

How the buoy actually runs itself

The control system for the buoy was built on Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure Automation Expert platform and is described as open and software-defined.

In practice this means the buoy's applications are not locked to specific hardware, so different vendors' equipment can be combined on the same system.

At the core is a Modicon M580 dPAC controller, a programmable automation controller that handles the function of the buoy, as well as the flow of data between sensors and equipment.

Its power comes from a renewable energy microgrid combining wind, solar PV and battery storage, with diesel generation as back-up.

Keeping watch from a distance

With no crew aboard, the connectivity and safety systems of the buoy carry extra importance.

In terms of connectivity, the buoy relies on 5G and SpaceX’s Starlink systems for high-availability communications back to shore.

And when it comes to safety and security, fire, gas and smoke detection are built in, alongside what Schneider Electric describes as a layered cybersecurity framework protecting the control system from intrusion.

A replicable model

Bilfinger has been named Schneider Electric's UK EAE Partner of the Year 2025 on the back of the project in the North Sea.

"Traditional automation architectures make customisation very difficult, especially for first-of-its-kind projects," says Steven Parkinson, Bilfinger’s Automation, Production and Service Director for the UK.

For Steven, this project is about integrating the principles of renewable generation, remote operation and autonomous control in one neat package.

"The real opportunity now lies in replicating and scaling this approach across future assets to enable a lower-carbon offshore industry," Devan Pillay, President of Heavy Industries at Schneider Electric, says.