Friends of the Wind

- Welcome, friends of the wind, said Finn Gunnar Nielsen from Bergen Offshore Wind Centre, to the almost 100 participants at the 9th Offshore Wind Conference Science Meets Industry held at UiB in Bergen this week.

The development strategy for offshore wind can be compared with planning an expedition, according to Jan Fredrik Stadaas from Equinor.

You need a destination, to choose a direction and to monitor the environment surrounding you. A plan and the right resources, lots of experience, courage and stamina also helps.

Past, Present, and Future for Offshore Wind

Equinor has had several internal programmes aimed at reducing the cost of offshore wind through the years; all, with a strong focus on external collaboration with suppliers, academia, competitors and governmental agencies. Key components were data gathering, testing and piloting.

Three key lessons from the past according to Stadaas, is that it takes time to develop something new, there is no easy fix and that you cannot do it alone.

At the present, Stadaas pointed to the need to be buidling efficient supply chains and builing efficient product and development pipelines and building the operations. Moreover, he ment there is a need to prove that the offshore wind industry can deliver over time and make it a stream lined process.

In order to lower the cost of offshore wind we need shared risks, rewards, data, and infrastructure, according to Stadaas, whome sees some symptoms of unhealty developments in the industry now.

He senses a huge apetite to invest, but also bottle necks in the supply chain - not necessarily with regards to building turbines, but in all the underlying components and Stadaas sees the cost actually starting to increase in some areas, which is a risk for the industry.

If we shall succeed - industry, the research community and educational institutions will all have to contribute and cooperate and that is what this conference is all about, Finn Gunnar Nielsen, Professor, Head Bergen Offshore Wind Centre (BOW).

Great Love Affairs

The consortium between Shell, BKK and Lyse was called “a great love affair” by Niclas Forsberg from BKK. The three companies havle joined forces to develop offshore wind and plan to apply for licenses for both fields that the Norwegian authorities have opened up for development, Sørlige Nordsjø II and Utsira Nord.

Other promising consortiums or love affairs were presented like, projects from Deep Wind Offshore and Vårgrønn.

We finally see some promising developments on the consortiums applying for Sørlige Nordsjø II and Utsira Nord. Brave risk-taking partners are necessary to speed up the development in offshore wind, Kai Stoltz, Business Development Manager, GCE Ocean Technology.

Need for Speed

Both Deep Wind Offshore and Norseman Wind emphasized the need for speed: Norseman is a giant offshore wind consortium planning to apply for a license in Sørlige Nordsjø II to develop and operate bottom-fixed offshore wind with a capacity of 1400 MW over 400 km2.

Norseman's development of Sørlige Nordsjø II will cost NOK 30-35 billion, and the ambition is for at least 50 per cent to go to the Norwegian supplier industry in the form of contracts.

There is a need for approximately 60 TWh (15 GW) new production online, according to estimations by Norseman Wind – who claimed that without major acceleration in development of offshore- and onshore wind, Norway will fall behind in the global competition.

Reducing Emissions

World leaders gathered at Cop26 in Glasgow recently to agree on emission reduction - and a key to the way forward is to speed up the development of the renewable energy industry, according to Finn Gunnar Nielsen, Professor and Head Bergen Offshore Wind Centre (BOW). This is also emphasized in a great deal of EU's programmes.

Offshore wind will be the most important electricity provider in Europe by 2040, according to Nielsen, and this requires a major upscaling of the industry in the years to come. We have no time to spoil if we are to succeed with this, Nielsen ended.

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Before you go check out our next event about offshore wind: Havvindbyen Bergen that we organise in collaboration with Invest in Bergen, Norsk Industri and Bergen Næringsråd.