Norway eyes major expansion of offshore wind capacity

LONDON (ICIS)–Norway is stepping up its focus on offshore windpower in a bid to find new sources of renewable energy and create new industry as the country’s oil and gas production has likely peaked, according to Prime Minister Erna Solberg.

Solberg was speaking on Friday in a presentation of the Norwegian government’s white paper on the future use of Norwegian energy resources, confirming that Norway is ready to entertain offshore wind production on a large scale.

The presentation comes days after Norway announced further details on the development of offshore wind in two designated areas.

MORE AREAS IN TWO YEARS

Despite successful early adoption of offshore wind technology, including floating platforms, Norway has until now only had a couple of smaller offshore farms to supply the power for oil and gas extraction.

Now, two areas in the North Sea have been designated for wind power and more areas are to follow. Minister for Petroleum and Energy Minister, Tina Bru, said Friday that the timeline for agreeing further designated areas for offshore wind use was two years.

The two already designated areas are Utsira Nord, which is suitable for floating wind only, and Sorlige Nordsjo II which is sufficiently shallow to allow fixed turbines.

Tina Bru said Tuesday the government expected to award two or three construction licenses for Sorlige Nordsjo II following a qualification process and an auction in the first quarter of 2022 for qualifying candidates. There will be no subsidies for these projects. The expected total capacity to be developed in Sorlige Nordsjo II is 3GW.

For Utsira Nord, up to three 500MW farms are expected on the site and the Norwegian government is willing to consider subsidies to develop the floating turbine technology. The selection process for developers will start at the end of 2021, according to the government’s press statement Friday.

OFFSHORE FOCUS OVERDUE

An alliance of Norwegian companies and business organisations has argued over the winter that a focus on offshore wind in Norway is long overdue and that offshore wind could become a new source of export for Norway.

There is no shortage of industry interest in the upcoming selection process for project developers.

On Wednesday, Danish energy company Orsted said it would participate in Norway’s upcoming application round for both areas in a consortium comprising of Norwegian companies Fred Olsen Renewables and Hafslund Eco.

Equinor, RWE and Hydro have also lined up to jointly apply for a construction license, but only for the Sorlige Nordsjo II.

NORWAY’S OFFSHORE LAG

Norway’s lack of offshore development is not down to lack of technology. State-owned Equinor is currently constructing the world’s largest floating wind farm, 88MW Hywind Tampen. Assembly will begin in 2022 and once finished the wind farm will be powering the Snorre and Gullfaks platforms in the North Sea. Norway also had the world’s first floating full-scale offshore wind turbine, 2.3MW Hywind, back in 2009.

And whereas onshore developments in Norway have been hampered by local complaints about the impact on nature, the opposition to offshore wind is more muted.

Friends of the Earth Norway tells ICIS that there will be no opposition to projects in the two newly designated areas, but that no new areas should be opened to wind power until the impact on the environment from the first areas has been fully examined.

The Norwegian Green Party suggests that there should be 30GW of offshore wind before 2030.

Still, compared to neighbouring Sweden and Denmark, Norway’s pipeline for offshore projects has hitherto been unimpressive. If 4.5GW of offshore capacity, and possibly more, is realised by 2030 Norway will not be an offshore laggard for long.