Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway — At a press conference at the Offshore Northern Seas (ONS) conference today, Equinor gave a status of Equinor’s offshore wind portfolio focusing on the North Sea.
Hywind Tampen in the Norwegian sector, the world’s first floating wind farm to supply electricity to oil and gas platforms (serving the Snorre and Gullfaks fields), is close to startup.
Recently, the first subsea cables were laid with a connection made to the Gullfaks A platform. The first seven Hywind Tampen turbines will come onstream this year with the remaining four to be installed next spring.
In the UK North Sea, the initial foundations were installed last month for the Dogger Bank fixed wind farm development.
Equinor expects to deliver first power in second-half 2023, with commercial operations beginning in 2024 for Dogger Bank A, 2025 for Dogger Bank B and 2026 for Dogger Bank C, respectively.
Earlier this year, the company and its partners committed to Trollvind, a 1-GW floating offshore wind farm to be located outside Bergen with a potential start of operations in 2027. After maturing the concept, they aim to take an investment decision in 2023.
As well as providing electrification of nearby offshore oil and gas installations, Trollvind would deliver extra power to the Bergen region and help speed up offshore wind development in Norway.
Equinor claims that increasing the size of wind farms is key to industrializing floating offshore wind and reducing the costs. And bringing the power to shore also promotes more efficient power use, the company said, through improved interaction with the regulated hydropower and onshore industry.
At the same time, increasing access to power should strengthen security of supply for the oil and gas installations.
Equinor is available to discuss these projects further at hall 8, booth 8000 at ONS this week.
08.30.2022
