Impressions: Lessons U.S. Offshore Wind Can Learn from Norway

This week the Business Network, along with  Darius Snieckus of  Recharge Magazine spent two days in Norway meeting Norwegian companies focused on floating offshore wind to discuss processes and lessons learned from the development and testing of floating #offshorewind. This unique exchange of insights and lessons learned was hosted by  Norwegian Energy Partners (NORWEP) Jørgen Brandt Theodorsen .  

Overall, the U.S. has a goal of 15 GW of floating offshore wind by 2035, which will begin in California. The five winners ( RWE Offshore Wind Holdings, LLC, California North Floating ( Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners ), Equinor Wind US, LLC , Central California Offshore Wind (Ocean Winds) and Invenergy California Offshore LLC) of Wednesday’s California offshore wind lease auction must rely on this new technology to develop offshore wind in waters that measures more than 1,000 meters - depths that no one in the world has tested for floating offshore wind.  

Our first stop was  Wergeland Group , the assembly area for Hywind Tampen, an 88MW floating wind power project intended to provide clean electricity for the Snorre and Gullfaks offshore field operations in the Norwegian North Sea. It will be the world's first floating wind farm to power offshore oil and gas platforms. Although only 11 turbines (8.6 MWs each), we were amazed at the assembly space acreage required for anchors, mooring lines, buoys, and rope. If you think fixed bottom offshore wind requires a lot of port space, double or triple your projections for floating offshore wind. Finding large tracts of land with deep water access is going to be a key challenge.  

Next, we met with DOF  and Equinor . In our discussions this week with  Equinor , DOF , Wergeland Group , we learned that, although there is cross-over between O&G experience, work that may have been separated prior is now overlapping and greater communication and collaboration is required, from anchor and mooring, logistics and storage, and supply chain availability to meet an increasingly global demand.  

In fact, before Abiel gave us a tour of the first ever unmanned Dogger Bank Subsea Station A, they told us that the company has a steady stream of offshore wind business, which within a little over a decade makes up 60 percent of its business and has a significant waitlist. Meanwhile engineers are working to develop substations to support floating wind projects while a myriad of floating turbine technology is being outlined, developed, and tested -- MetCentre will have 7 different turbines in Norwegian waters by 2025. It may be one of these designs that solve the deep-water challenges California faces.  

So, what does this mean for the U.S.? We have the chance to pivot quickly into a new technology in high demand worldwide. The U.S. has 11 floating platform designs, the second most in the world and with the   U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)  FLOWIN challenge, we can use this federal support to quickly seize this opportunity. We can assess where U.S. companies can capitalize on a manufacturing supply chain that will continue to grow in scale, both within the U.S. and potential for exporting expertise and products—including secondary steel, component manufacturing, and logistics, port development, and vessel needs. We will discuss all this and more at the Network’s Offshore Wind Supplier Day: California Edition, happening this Wednesday, December 14 in San Diego. Join the Network in this important and exciting discussion. Read more in-depth coverage at Recharge .  Liz Burdock Melinda Skea   Darius Snieckus  #offshorewind   

Come meet Doug Boren (BOEM),  David Vallee ( Cierco Energy ),  Thalía Krüger ( Principle Power ) as well as industry leaders from  RWE , Equinor , International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) , UBJCA,  Saildrone , General Dynamics NASSCO, Gemini Energy Services , Rystad Energy , and many others. Together, we’ll forge a successful path forward.