Norwegian winds fueling a green transition

Industry

Published: 21 May. 2023, 07:00 Updated: 21 May. 2023, 18:02

Norwegian winds fueling a green transition

Offshore floating wind turbines at an assembly site in Gulen, southwestern Norway, on May 3, Wednesday. The turbines will be installed at the Hywind Tampen, the world's largest offshore floating wind farm. [SHIN HA-NEE]

BERGEN, Norway — Amid a deep blue sea of a fjord, Norway, one of the world’s major oil and gas suppliers, is readying itself for the worldwide transition away from fossil fuels with gigantic wind turbines rising 200 meters (656 feet) above water.

Combined with the floating concrete substructure submerged below the surface, the wind turbine measures 295 meters in total, which is 50 meters taller than the N Seoul Tower in central Seoul and nears the height of the Eiffel Tower.

The 8.6-megawatt turbine was set to sail off in a few days to the Hywind Tampen, the world’s largest offshore wind farm site, run by Equinor.

It is a milestone, as well as a stepping stone, for Equinor and its upcoming projects, which include its ambitious offshore floating wind roll-out plans in Korea.

Equinor is one of the major players in the global offshore floating wind market. The state-owned company is currently partaking in multiple offshore wind projects in and outside Norway including the 800-megawatt Bandibuli, or Firefly project, and the 200-megawatt Donghae 1 project in Ulsan, Korea.

At first glance, it is hard to believe that the colossal bulk of iron and concrete is actually floating in the waters, as the substructure seems to never budge even an inch despite constantly moving sea waves.

“If you tip the blade straight upwards and pick the whole thing out of the sea, it will lack about 30 meters from the Eiffel Tower, but weigh three times its weight — [the wind turbine] weighs 22,000 tons actually, so it is amazing that it floats,” said Ole Arild Larsen, operation manager of the Hywind Tampen floating offshore wind project at Equinor.

The world’s largest offshore floating wind

In early May when the Korea JoongAng Daily visited the wind turbine assembly site at Fensfjord bordered by gently rolling mountains in Gulen, southwestern Norway, three massive wind turbines were standing near the shore.

The Hywind Tampen is located far out in the North Sea, 140 kilometers apart from the western coast. While the Hywind Tampen is about 7 to 8 hours away by boat from the shore, it would take about three days for each wind turbine to arrive at the site, escorted by three towing ships.

A Hywind Tampen wind turbine, which measures 295 meters including the substructure submerged below the surface [SHIN HA-NEE]

Scheduled for completion this year, the Hywind Tampen will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world with 11 turbines and capacity of 88 megawatts when fully operational. As of May 3, eight wind turbines were already installed at the site, with the remaining three assembled and ready for departure.

The Hywind Tampen project aims to replace about 35 percent of power consumption at Snorre and Gullfaks offshore oil and gas installations in the Tampen area of the North Sea.

“It’s the first offshore wind farm that is supplying power to oil and gas installations,” said Larsen, adding that “a lot of people are interested in the project because this is a challenge, something that has never been done before.”

The five offshore oil and gas installations in the Tampen area traditionally burnt gas to run turbines in order to procure power used during the production of crude oil and natural gas. With the additional power delivered by the wind turbines integrated with gas generation, the platforms are expected to reduce 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year, equivalent to the amount of CO2 emissions from 100,000 cars.

Yet climate consciousness is not the sole value driver behind the Hywind Tampen project; as with any other decisions made by corporations, it is about long-term profits, reducing expenses and seeking breakthroughs.

Equinor and its partners in the project “did not make the decision to do this not just because it’s a nice thing to do — but because it makes sense from a business perspective,” said Henrik Arnestad Salthe, head of communications in Renewables Asia-Pacific at Equinor.

Although offshore wind is still in its early stage and therefore has higher costs compared to other renewable power sources, profitability is expected to improve when the generation capacity reaches the industrial scale as the market expands. DNV suggests the production cost of electricity by offshore floating wind to gradually decline from $100 per megawatt-hours in 2025 to $40 per megawatt-hours by 2050.

The Hywind Tampen is also serving as a testbed for offshore wind technologies for Equinor.

“The North Sea area blows a lot, which is positive, but also brings currents and waves, and what we are doing here is to really test it out in harsh conditions,” explained Larsen.

While Korea’s natural environment is different from that of Norway with its comparatively lower water depth, the ongoing projects in Korea will also “use a lot of the same technology and know-how [as the Hywind Tampen] in terms of data models for how the turbine moves in the water, how the power production is optimized and so on,” according to Salthe.

[EQUINOR]

The next big thing

Though still in its infancy, offshore floating wind is considered a prominent renewable source due to its vast potential. Compared to onshore wind turbines, offshore wind has potentially higher generation capacity thanks to the generally stronger wind out at sea. Floating offshore wind, especially, is suitable for deeper waters far out at sea than fixed offshore wind turbines.

The global offshore wind capacity is estimated to reach 1,784 gigawatts by 2050, from 57.6 gigawatts last year, with the floating wind taking up 15 percent of the total, or 264 gigawatts.

A floating offshore wind project is a culmination of complex and cutting-edge technologies across the board, from subsea cable deployment to port infrastructure management, involving a wide range of players in the multisectoral supply chain.

And Norway sees the nascent industry to be its next growth driver amid the accelerating energy transition to renewables in Europe, as the country’s experience in offshore gas and oil production translates almost directly into its capabilities in floating wind.

In the Hywind Tampen project, for example, many of the participating companies are Equinor’s long-standing suppliers, or “old friends” as Larsen described, in the oil and gas operations.

DOF Subsea, an offshore operation company, is one of them.

Founded in 2005, DOF Subsea has participated in a number of oil and gas projects across the globe, and is expanding its foothold in the offshore wind sector. The company took part in a range of offshore engineering in the Hywind Tampen project, such as the fabrication of marine interfaces and the installation of the turbines, moorings and more.

Jan-Kristian Haukeland, right, executive vice president of the Atlantic region of DOF Subsea, and Fredrik Johan von der Fehr, left, senior project manager, on May 2 at the company's headquarters in Bergen [SHIN HA-NEE]

“We can use much of our experience and our equipment, especially the vessels, which are very suitable to move straight into the wind from floating oil and gas platforms,” said Fredrik Johan von der Fehr, senior project manager of DOF Subsea, on May 2 at the company's headquarters in Bergen.

DOF has been seeing a meaningful shift toward renewables in terms of revenue, said Jan-Kristian Haukeland, executive vice president of the Atlantic region of DOF Subsea.

“In the Atlantic region, which I am currently responsible for, I think maybe within 10 years about 50 percent of our revenue will be coming from renewables,” suggested Haukeland.

The company is currently seeking to establish a local office in Korea this year, according to Haukeland.

Saga Offshore Wind, an affiliate of Saga Subsea, also sees new opportunities in renewables.

Einar Tollaksvik, Saga Group CEO, explained that "offshore wind suits us very well," citing the company's abundant experience of operating in the so-called "splash zone," from the water surface and down 50 meters below, "a very tough area to do inspections in."

Founded in 2011, Saga is a marine operation service provider, covering wide areas involving marine and vessel engineering, subsea cable, logistics, port infrastructure and more.

"We are getting around 20 to 30 percent of our total turnover from renewables now," said Tollaksvik.

The company plans to roll out a new service, according to Tollaksvik, to provide a mobile platform for offshore wind operations.

"One of the biggest challenges that we see [in the offshore floating wind projects] is the port infrastructure," said Tollaksvik.

Establishing an assembly site for offshore wind turbines often requires an immense amount of money, resources and land, not to mention the possible environmental impact during the construction process, and "that doesn't help to get the price per produced kilo or megawatts down," said the CEO.

That is why Saga developed a floating offshore support site using the existing local logistic infrastructure, according to Tollaksvik.

The company is currently in discussion with possible partners and clients, and the concept will be introduced during the Floating Wind Days 2023 conference.

The grand shift

In Norway, hydropower accounts for the vast majority of the country’s energy mix.

However, the country aims to ramp up offshore wind capacities, as the power demand is expected to only grow with accelerating electrification.

"We are going to consume more electricity in the years to come, that is the forecast," said Haukeland.

The fast adoption of electric cars in the country and the increasing demand for data centers are among other factors boosting power demand.

And another driver behind the renewables initiative is the country’s high dependency on the oil and gas industry amid the energy transition.

As Norway, along with other European countries, attempts to move away from oil and gas, the country and its economy “need a new big industry to keep people busy,” said von der Fehr of DOF Subsea.

In 2022, oil and gas were the largest export items for Norway, amounting to 73 percent of the country’s total exports, according to Norwegian Petroleum. The country is the third-largest exporter of natural gas behind Russia and Qatar.

The Norwegian government’s drive for the transition is also strong, with an ambitious target to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind capacities by 2040.

Zefyros, a prototype wind turbine renamed from Hywind Demo, installed at METcentre in Haugesund, Norway, on May 4 [SHIN HA-NEE]

As such, companies and organizations both in and outside Norway are scrambling to secure more advanced technologies with the aim to improve efficiency and cut heavy costs.

And the Marine Energy Test Centre (METCentre) hopes to accelerate that process.

METCentre, located in Haugesund in southwestern Norway, is a test site for floating offshore wind turbines, the only facility of its kind for floating wind equipment in Norway, with power connected to onshore from the offshore test site.

On May 4, a floating wind turbine named Zefyros stood at the METCenter's main test site located 10 kilometers off shore, along with another demonstration model named TetraSpar.

Zefyros was renamed from Hywind Demo, the first-ever floating offshore wind turbine. The experience and data from Hywind Demo was used during the Hywind Tampen project.

Several new projects are coming in, including Hexicon's twin-turbine demonstrator, which has not one but two wind turbines on a single substructure, and Flagship, a European Union-backed project with a 10-megawatt turbine set.

“Business development is important,” said Hanne Tvedt, project manager at METCentre, adding that the local companies are currently “making money from oil and gas projects, so it’s easier for them to invest and make sure that they survive the transition.”

METCentre is conducting various research activities on relevant subjects, including the possible impact that offshore floating wind facilities may have on the marine environment.

“We[Norway] are actually quite late to the party,” said Tvedt, “but because of the good experience and knowledge the Norwegian companies have from oil and gas, they will be important players in the development of offshore wind.”

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]