Equinor To Bid In Norway’s First Offshore Wind Tender

Norway’s energy major Equinor plans to bid to be admitted to the first offshore wind tender in his home country, Equinor’s chief executive officer Anders Opedal told Reuters on Friday.

“At the moment we are working to be as competitive as possible in this,” the executive told Reuters on the sidelines of the third-quarter earnings presentation.   

The tender begins with pre-qualification and “then we will see what happens after that,” he added.

Norway announced in March this year the first competitions for offshore wind areas, as the Norwegian government takes a big step towards its ambition of allocating areas for 30,000 MW offshore wind by 2040.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy announced a competition for project areas for renewable energy production at sea in two areas on the Norwegian continental shelf—Sørlige Nordsjø II and Utsira Nord.

The bids for pre-qualification for Sørlige Nordsjø II should be submitted by November 15, while the deadline for Utsira Nord has been postponed indefinitely until issues concerning competition rules under the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) are being cleared.

Equinor is very active in the offshore wind business with operations and plans for development in the United States and Europe, mostly in the UK.

Earlier this month, the world’s largest offshore wind farm, the Dogger Bank Wind Farm in UK waters, achieved first power and started sending electricity to the UK national grid, the developers of the project – which include Equinor – said.

“A renewable mega-project like Dogger Bank constitutes an industrial wind hub in the heart of the North Sea, playing a major role in the UK’s ambitions for offshore wind and supporting its net zero ambitions,” Equinor’s Opedal said at the time.  

While the UK and the developers hailed the power milestone at the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, the current regulatory and business landscape for offshore wind faces headwinds in the UK and globally.

By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com

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