Equinor, along with partners Petoro, TotalEnergies, Shell and ConocoPhillips, is looking into building a floating offshore wind farm 65 km west of Bergen, Norway, of the Troll field, a press release stated.
The project, named Trollvind, would have an install capacity of about 1 gigawatt and an annual production of approximately 4.3 TWh. Its expected startup date is in 2027.
Trollvind could provide electricity needed to run the offshore Troll and Oseberg fields through an onshore connection point. While the Bergen area already serves several of these installations with power, it needs more input to its electricity grid, so the partnership will buy any energy the wind farm can produce to make the project possible.
"A full-scale floating offshore wind farm like Trollvind could boost momentum towards realizing the Norwegian authorities’ ambition to position Norway as an offshore wind nation, building on expertise from the oil and gas industry,” Equinor CEO Anders Opedal commented in the release.
The partners are evaluating commercial arrangements where the Trollvind development are selling power to the Troll and Oseberg installations and the natural gas processing plant Kollsnes. The project will not require other forms of financial support and is estimated to deliver power for less than 1 Norwegian krone per kWh.
Power provided by Trollvind could contribute to the electrification of Norwegian oil and gas installations and accelerate offshore wind development, in alignment with the Norwegian parliament's 2020 decision to intensify emissions reduction requirements from the continental shelf to 50% by 2030.
“Using our integrated capabilities to decarbonize existing operations and accelerate offshore wind development is exactly the kind of action our companies need to be taking to further society’s progress towards net zero by 2050,” Thomas Brostrøm, global executive vice president of renewable generation at Shell, added.
The project is currently being further matured by the Troll and Oseberg partners initiating feasibility studies aimed at an investment decision during 2023.
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