Norway stepping up assessment of future offshore wind areas

The Norwegian government plans to announce Norway’s next available areas for offshore wind development in 2025.

It also plans to offer a NOK35 billion (US$3.2 billion) support scheme for the first floating offshore wind tender over the Vestavind F and Vestavind B areas in the southern Norwegian North Sea.

“Norway has an enormous potential for floating offshore wind on its continental shelf, but because the technology remains immature and costly, state support is required to accelerate its development,” said Minister of Energy Terje Aasland.

The government aims to allocate project areas for a total of 30 GW offshore wind by 2040. It recently held a public consultation on the support scheme models for Vestavind B and Vestavind F.

The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate will undertake a strategic impact assessment of 20 areas that may be suitable for the development of offshore wind.

Assessments of the Vestavind F and B and Sørvest F areas will be completed by November and for the remaining 17 areas by next June.

Global floating offshore wind project pipeline growing

The global pipeline of floating offshore wind projects has expanded in the last 12 months from 244 GW to 266 GW, which is an increase of 9%, according to an Oct. 8 report by RenewableUK.

The number of projects has increased globally during that time from 285 to 316. The pipeline includes projects at any stage: fully operational, under construction, approved, in the planning system or at an early stage of development.

So far, 245 MW of floating wind are fully operational across 15 projects in seven countries:

Norway has the most with 94 MW (three projects);
The UK is second with 78 MW (two projects);
China has 40 MW (five projects);
Portugal is fourth with 25 MW (one project); and
Japan is fifth with 5 MW (two projects).

Globally, 102 MW are under construction (four projects), 7.3 GW are consented or in the pre-construction phase (22 projects), 21.6 GW are in the planning system (15 projects) and 184 GW are in early development or applying for a lease, acccording to the RenewableUK report.

Although Italy has the largest pipeline with 16% of the global total (41.3 GW), most of these projects are at an early stage of development. The same applies to the US, which is second with 13% (35.3 GW). The UK is third with 12% (33.1 GW), followed by Spain at 9% (24.7 GW) and Sweden on 7% (18.2 GW).

Floating Offshore Wind Total Portfolio By Country (MW)

In addition, 62% (165 GW) of floating wind capacity announced so far worldwide is being developed in European waters, RenewableUK reported. And 12% (33.1 GW) of the global floating portfolio is in UK waters, three-quarters of which (24.8 GW) is in Scottish waters.