Oil giants to build world's largest floating wind farm in Norway
A consortium of oil giants headed by Equinor and including TotalEnergies, Petoro, Shell and ConocoPhillips are set to commence a feasibility study into what could be the world's largest floating offshore wind farm, 65km off the coast of Bergen, Norway.
The Trollvind farm could produce as much as 4.3TWh, with an installed capacity of 1GW, and could supply much of the power needed to run the Troll and Oseberg offshore fields, which it forms a part of, through an onshore connection.
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The Bergen area already provides for several of Equinor and its partners' wind farms, but it requires more power on its energy grid, which is the reason for this new study.
The current plan is that the partners will buy as much energy for the site as it can produce at a cheap price to make the project possible, in the hopes that, once set up, the project can aid in the rapid electrification of oil and gas - hoping to lower the sector's emissions while energy firms look for alternate forms of generation.
Equinor CEO Anders Opedal hopes that by ensuring oil and gas operates at lower emissions it can help Norway's energy sector remain competitive as the world looks to shift away from fossil fuels.
He also belies it could make generation more consistent as electrification adds many optimisations.
"Trollvind is a concept where renewable energy works to facilitate several objectives; helping cut emissions through electrification, delivering power to an area where shortages have already created challenges for new industrial development, and Norway maintains its position as a leader in the industrialisation of floating offshore wind", he said.
"A full-scale floating offshore wind farm like Trollvind could boost momentum towards realising the Norwegian authorities’ ambition to position Norway as an offshore wind nation, building on expertise from the oil and gas industry".
The Norwegian government is hoping to slash carbon emissions from Norway's energy sector, in particular across the continental shelf which hosts much of its energy fields, dozens of kilometres from the coast, in the North Sea.
Floating wind differs from traditional offshore wind in that instead of being planted into the seabed, the turbines float on a buoyant platform made, in part, from concrete or steel, and stabilised by moorings and anchors.
The main advantage of this is clear: it allows for the installation of wind energy in deeper waters, which significantly increases areas for potential development and leads to larger farms and thus more generation. This is particularly useful as wind energy can be used for more than just electricity - it can also be converted into green hydrogen via electrolysis, which can be used in other sectors, such as steel, aerospace, transport and much more.
“This can be a fantastic opportunity for Norway and for the industry", Shell's global EVP for renewables Thomas Brostrøm said in a statement.
“Using [our expertise in] decarbonising existing operations and accelerating offshore wind development is exactly the kind of action our companies need to be taking to further society’s progress towards net-zero by 2050”.
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Equinor believes that collaboration between the Norwegian state and industry should cement the wind farm's success.
It also believes connecting an offshore wind farm to the shore could also lead to an increase in the size of wind farms while also bringing costs down.
Odepal also believes this could aid in the development of other types of energy such as hydropower.
As for financing, the plant would sell energy directly to the Troll and Oseberg installations, meaning it should pay for itself.
Once the feasibility study concludes, the consortium will make a final decision on whether to go through with the plant at some point in 2023.
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