Hywind Tampen is Norway’s first investment in offshore wind power – 140 kilometers from the Norwegian coast. The facility outside Florø consists of 11 floating wind turbines which will provide 35 percent of the power supply to the five Snorre and Gullfaks platforms in the North Sea. Today, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre traveled to Gullfaks C, where Crown Prince Haakon will preside over the official opening. Hywind Tampen is: The largest floating offshore wind farm in the world. The first offshore wind farm in Norway. The first floating wind farm in the world that supplies power to oil and gas platforms. The plant will account for almost half of the floating offshore wind capacity currently available in the world. Emission reduction: 4 per thousand The project contributed to reducing the use of gas turbines at Gullfaks and Snorre. According to Equinor, emissions will be cut by 200,000 tonnes of CO₂ and 1,000 tonnes of NOx annually. This corresponds to the pollution from 100,000 cars with fossil fuel. Put another way: Hywind Tampen removes 4 per thousand of Norway’s total CO₂ emissions of 50 million tonnes. or 7.5 per thousand of the 27 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions that the country has promised the UN to cut by 2030. Norway’s greenhouse gas emissions and climate targets measured in million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents60 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalents? Click for explanation of CO₂ equivalents. Norway’s climate target 23.1 million tonnes annually Go to news’s Climate Status What is Norway’s climate target? By 2030, Norway must cut at least 55 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions compared to 1990 levels. The goal is to be achieved in cooperation with the EU. By 2050, 90-95 per cent of Norwegian emissions must be cut. This means that we must cut emissions at record speed. In the last ten years we have managed to cut around 5 million tonnes, in the next ten we will cut around 25 million tonnes. How will Norway reach the climate target? Norway must cut emissions in two ways, because the sources of emissions can be divided into two: Emissions subject to a quota: This are particularly emissions from industry and the oil/gas platforms. The emissions are covered by the EU’s quota system: In order to emit greenhouse gases, the industry must buy permits (quotas) in the EU at the price determined by the quota market. Steadily higher prices and fewer allowances will force emissions cuts where it is easiest to implement. Non-eligible emissions: These are greenhouse gas emissions from, among other things, transport, agriculture, waste and heating in buildings. This is called the non-quota-obligatory sector because you do not need quotas to release greenhouse gases. How Norway can cut emissions in this sector is described in the specialist report “Climate cure 2030”. The politicians decide which of the measures from the report are to be implemented. Norway can also cut non-quota-obligatory emissions by paying for emission cuts in other European countries. The government says that it plans to meet the targets without using this option, but it can be used if it becomes “strictly necessary”. For Norway, the emissions in the two sectors are roughly the same: in 2019, they released around 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gases each .What happens if Norway does not reach the climate target? It could be politically embarrassing. A likely solution is that Norway chooses to pay for emission cuts in other countries. Norway can also be subject to sanctions if we do not reach the targets we have agreed with the EU. Norway must regularly report cuts to the UN, in line with the targets set in the Paris Agreement. Here, no sanctions are stipulated for those who do not fulfill their obligations. – Small and expensive climate cut Thina Saltvedt, chief analyst for sustainable finance at Nordea, says Hywind Tampen is “an important signaling project for Equinor”, but that it has “very little effect on the total emissions, both for Equinor and for Norway as a whole”. – It can nevertheless become an important technology and energy source that has the potential to become internationally competitive in the green shift, and a good contribution to cutting CO₂ emissions. The premise is that they manage to scale up and bring down costs. The first power production at Hywind Tampen started in November 2022. The entire plant is now fully operational, but things have been going on in the sea: the Covid-19 pandemic contributed to increased costs, and the Ukraine war has contributed to delayed deliveries and quality defects on steel. The weak krone exchange rate has also made the development more expensive. Last year, the price tag increased from NOK 5 billion to around NOK 6.5 billion. Now in August, Equinor announced that Hywind Tampen has cost NOK 7.4 billion. If all the climate cuts Norway has committed to were to be equally expensive per tonne of CO₂, it would cost over NOK 1,000 billion in total. – It is very expensive as it is today. Too expensive to continue, both to produce electricity in competition with other energy sources, and as a measure to cut CO₂ emissions, Saltvedt believes. Hywind Tampen is Norway’s first investment in offshore wind power – 140 kilometers from the Norwegian coast. Photo: Karoline Rivero Bernacki / Equinor ASA Provides 3 percent of the offshore wind ambition Hywind Tampen is also small in terms of energy production compared to the political ambitions for Norwegian offshore wind investment. The project has a total capacity of 88 megawatts. By way of comparison, the government’s goal is to allocate an area equivalent to 30,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2040. Hywind Tampen therefore delivers just under 3 per thousand of this. Many have previously expressed skepticism as to whether the ambitions are realistic. Equinor is content to say that Hywind Tampen “demonstrates the possibilities for renewable power production on the Norwegian continental shelf”. Opposition to offshore wind power In the debate on offshore wind, several counter-arguments have been raised: Electrification of oil and gas platforms will require electricity that could rather be used by green industrial development on the mainland. Wind turbine installations at sea can cause disadvantages for the fishing industry, and damage bird migration. Critics of the continuing petroleum industry believe that replacing gas turbines with wind power as a power source on the platforms is “greenwashing” of polluting industry. Saltvedt, on the other hand, believes it is important to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from Norwegian oil and gas production, which emits the most CO₂ in Norway. – Offshore wind power is a better alternative than sending hydropower in cables out to the platforms, because it will deprive the mainland of power needed for new green industry, and contribute to increasing power prices, she says. State-supported investment It is Norwegian taxpayers who cover much of the total cost of Hywind Tampen. The state fund Enova and the Norwegian Business NOx Fund have respectively provided NOK 2.3 billion and NOK 566 million to stimulate technology development in offshore wind and emission reductions. In addition, the petroleum tax system means that developers can deduct 78 per cent of their own costs in the project. As a result, Equinor and its partners are reimbursed almost NOK 4 billion from the state. The entire development of Hywind Tampen has thus “only” cost the oil company around NOK 1.1 billion.
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Calls floating offshore wind turbines a small and very expensive climate cut – news Vestland
