Norway's Equinor Sinks Floating Offshore Windfarm Plan

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Norwegian oil company Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) (Stavanger, Norway) has put plans for a major floating offshore windfarm in the North Sea on ice citing a number of reasons including rising costs.

The Trollvind project is a 1-gigawatt (GW) floating windfarm that is earmarked for the Troll area of the Norwegian North Sea that would supply green energy to the installations at the Troll and Oseberg oil fields. The project was not only designed to help reduce emissions from its operations but to also help deliver power to a region where shortages have created challenges for new industrial development. Last year, Equinor and partners claimed that a full-scale floating offshore windfarm like Trollvind could boost the Norwegian Government's ambition to position Norway as an offshore wind nation, building on expertise from the oil and gas industry. However, Equinor said that it will postpone further development "indefinitely" claiming that the project is now facing increased challenges including technology availability, rising costs and a strained timetable to deliver on the original concept.

"We appreciate all the positive response towards Trollvind from politicians, suppliers, and authorities," said Siri Espedal Kindem, Equinor's vice president of renewables Norway. "Trollvind was a bold industrial plan to solve pressing issues concerning electrification of oil and gas installations, bringing much needed power to the Bergen-area, while accelerating floating offshore wind power in Norway. Unfortunately, we no longer see a way forward to deliver on our original concept of having an operational wind farm well before 2030."

Industrial Info is tracking 17 European floating offshore windfarm projects worth US$16.5 billion in investment. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Project Database can click here for the report.

The decision will deal a serious blow to Norway's efforts to diversify its energy mix and become a major offshore wind nation. This time last year, the government revealed an ambitious plan to install 3,000 GW of offshore windfarms by 2040. That would see the same amount of clean energy added as the total amount of electricity currently produced in Norway, allowing it to become a leading exporter of renewable power in Europe. For additional information, see May 24, 2022, article - Norway Plans Offshore Windfarm Bonanza.

The company said that it will use the experience from working on Trollvind on other projects and it "remains committed" to developing floating offshore wind power at Utsira Nord and outside Norway. The company's Hywind Tampen floating offshore windfarm is the world's leading operational floating offshore windfarm. With a total capacity of 88 megawatts it is designed to supply around 35% of the annual power needs for five of the company's oil platforms: Snorre A and B, and Gullfaks A, B and C. The turbines are located about 140 kilometers off the Norwegian coast in deep waters with an average depth of 260-300 meters.

Industrial Info Resources (IIR) is the leading provider of industrial market intelligence. Since 1983, IIR has provided comprehensive research, news and analysis on the industrial process, manufacturing and energy related industries. IIR's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) helps companies identify and pursue trends across multiple markets with access to real, qualified and validated plant and project opportunities. Across the world, IIR is tracking over 200,000 current and future projects worth $17.8 Trillion (USD).