Offshore energy giant Equinor and its partners in the Snorre and Gullfaks oil & gas complex in the Norwegian Sea have taken a final investment decision (FID) to go ahead with the 88MW Hywind Tampen floating wind development.

The oil & gas platforms, located some 140km from shore in 260-300 metres of water, will be the world’s first to be powered by a floating wind farm.

“We have been systematically maturing technologies for floating wind for almost 20 years. The decision by the Snorre and Gullfaks partners helps bring this technology an important step forward,” said Equinor chief executive Eldar Sætre.

“About 80% of the global resource potential for offshore wind is in deep waters, and floating wind may play an important part in the energy transition towards more sustainable global energy supply.”

The project, first announced in August 2018, will cost almost NKr5bn ($550m).

Norwegian authorities, through the sustainable energy funding body Enova, have made a funding commitment of up to NKr2.3bn to Hywind Tampen, with the so-called NOx Fund supporting the project with NKr566m.

The floating wind farm, which will consist of 11 turbines based on the Hywind technology developed by Equinor, will capable of meeting more than a third of the annual power demand of the five Snorre A and B, Gullfaks A, B and C platforms.

“The pioneering Hywind Tampen project will help cut emissions from Gullfaks and Snorre. We are driving a transition aimed to sustain and add value on the Norwegian continental shelf, while reducing the carbon footprint from our operations,” said Arne Sigve Nylund, Equinor’s executive vice president for development & production off Norway.

A demonstrator unit based on the spar-buoy-based Hywind concept was brought online off Norway in 2009. In 2017, Equinor switched on the world’s first floating wind array, the 30MW Hywind Scotland, in the UK North Sea.

Equinor stresses how Hywind Tampen will make its oil & gas production “cleaner”: by reducing the use of gas turbines on the fields the project will cut CO₂ emissions by more than 200,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to the annual emissions from 100,000 passenger cars.

But it is also clear that the floating wind array’s economic viability is closely linked to that of the much larger oil & gas operations, with Nylund noting that the getting the Norwegian authorities’ consent to extend the productive life of the Gullfaks to 2036 and Snorre to 2040, some 20 years longer than expected when the fields started pumping “has been essential to realising the Hywind Tampen project”.

Also, according to a study performed by Multiconsult, the Hywind Tampen project will generate 1,550 to 3,000 man-years through the field’s productive life in spin-offs for Norwegian industry.

Scheduled to come online in late 2022, Hywind Tampen will be operated from Equinor’s Bergen office.

Gulen Industrihamn in western Norway has been chosen for the assembly of the floating wind turbines for Hywind Tampen before being transported to the field in the North Sea.

Equinor holds a 51% stake in Gullfaks, with Petoro AS holding 30%, and OMV (Norge) another 19%. In Snorre, Equinor holds 33.3%, Petoro 30%, ExxonMobil E&P Norway 17.5%, Idemitsu Petroleum Norge 9.6%, DEA Norge 8.6%, and Vår Energi 1.1%.

· With additional reporting by Darius Snieckus

Wind

Equinor gives go-ahead for floating wind’s offshore oil debut