Source: Houston Chronicle
Equinor said Friday it will build the first-ever offshore floating wind development designed to power its oil and gas platforms off the coast of Norway.
The roughly $550 million Hywind Tampen project will be built about 85 miles offshore to power the Snorre and Gullfaks platforms in the North Sea. The water depths are deep enough that floating wind turbines are required.
“We have been systematically maturing technologies for floating offshore wind for almost 20 years,” said Equinor Chief Executive Eldar Sætre. “About 80 percent of the global resource potential for offshore wind is in deep waters, and floating offshore wind may play an important part in the energy transition towards more sustainable global energy supply.”
The wind farm, which would be completed in 2022, will include of 11 floating wind turbines developed by Equinor. The development will have 88 megawatts of power capacity, enough to meet about 35 percent of the demand from the five Snorre and Gullfaks platforms in the Norwegian North Sea.
By reducing the use of gas-fired turbines, Equinor said it will cut its carbon dioxide emissions by more than 200,000 metric tons per year, the equivalent of the annual emissions of about 100,000 cars.
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