Equinor is postponing further development of Trollvind indefinitely. They write that in a press release this afternoon. The project is no longer commercially feasible, they write in the press release. – The idea and concept that we launched last year, we are now putting that aside. That does not mean that Troll and the Oseberg area cannot be a relevant area for offshore wind in the future, but as Trollvind was launched last year, we are now putting it aside, says Magnus Frantzen Eidsvold, Equinor’s press officer to news. High costs and a tight timeline are some of the reasons why Equinor is now forced to postpone the project. – This is disappointing from Equinor. They blame increased costs but continue the plans for Sørlige Nordsjø 2 and Utsira nord, says SV’s deputy chairman Torgeir Knag Fylkesnes, and adds: – They do not take seriously the consequences of power from shore for mainland industry and ordinary people’s electricity bills, and do not prioritize the opportunities electrification with floating offshore wind has for the Norwegian supplier industry. It is serious for Equinor’s credibility in the green shift. The Troll A platform was one of those that would benefit from the offshore wind turbines. Photo: Øyvind Knoph Askeland Launched the project last year In the summer of 2022, Equinor launched plans for a floating offshore wind farm in the Troll area of the North Sea, located 65 kilometers west of Bergen. – Unfortunately, we no longer see any opportunity to deliver on our original initiative of having a floating offshore wind farm in operation well before 2030, says head of Renewables in Norway at Equinor, Siri Espedal Kindem in the press release. The aim was that the turbines on the Troll field would supply electricity to Kollsnes in Vestland, lower prices in the Bergen area and help electrify the oil platform. In addition, they were to speed up the offshore wind investment in Norway. – The most serious thing is that we have a need for power today that we cannot cover. We say no to new, green jobs today in Western Norway because we do not have enough energy. Then the Trollvind project was a welcome project because it would actually cover around 3 percent of Norway’s overall needs, says Managing Director of the Bergen Business Council, Monica Mæland. Monica Mæland says that the cancellation is a very serious and discouraging decision. She requests that the authorities also see the need that exists in Western Norway and that they can thus contribute money to get the project up and running again. – We have a crying need for this, she says. No longer realistic In April this year, the start of construction for Trollvind was postponed. Then the company said that it was no longer realistic to get it done by 2027. So now the whole project has been postponed indefinitely. It is Equinor, together with partners Petoro, TotalEnergies, Shell and ConocoPihillips in the Troll and Oseberg fields, that are the players behind these plans in the North Sea. According to Equinor, it was estimated that Trollvind should be able to deliver power at less than NOK 1/kWh. Production can be around 4.3 terawatt hours.
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Equinor is scrapping the offshore wind farm Trollvind on the Trollfield – news Vestland
