Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway — Equinor expects to start up the first seven turbines for the Hywind Tampen wind farm in the North Sea in the current quarter, with the remaining four to be installed next spring.
Due to supply chain bottlenecks, caused largely by steel issues worldwide, the final four tower sections for the wind turbines cannot be delivered until September—too late for this year’s installation weather window.
Four of the seven turbines that have been assembled are now in place at the location in the Tampen area, 140 km offshore western Norway in 260-m to 300-m water depths. Once production begins, they will supply electricity initially to the Gullfaks Field complex and then to Snorre.
According to Equinor, Hywind Tampen will be the world's largest floating wind farm and the first to supply electricity to oil and gas platforms. Its capacity of 88 MW should satisfy 35% of the electrical power demand at the two field centers.
The seven first turbines, which will power both fields, will have a capacity of 60 MW. All have been tested and found to comply with all quality specifications.
Siemens Gamesa is manufacturing the towers, nacelles and blades; deviations found in steel quality in four tower sections have been corrected.
Due to the market situation for steel, the company has been working with its sub-suppliers and Equinor on ways of speeding up deliveries.
The Hywind Tampen turbines are installed on floating concrete structures with a shared anchoring system.
07.13.2022
