Norway 'taking wind's input seriously' ahead of milestone tender, says offshore pioneer
Deep Wind Offshore CEO Knut Vassbotn tells Recharge company also enthusiastic about upcoming Swedish marine spatial plan
“The Norwegian government is firm that the opening [of the first tender] will be in March with a tender for lease areas to be delivered around the summer, and then with exclusivity awarded for the three [500MW] projects on Utsira Nord and the one [1.5GW] project on Southern North Sea 2 by the end of the year,” Vassbotn said in an interview.
“We are in close dialogue with the government. We are pleased to see that they are taking the input from the industry seriously,” he said.
“And they are adapting [their approach] in a way that is reasonable for them to comply with the comments... so, we are excited to see what will be issued in March.”
The government has been trying to narrow down the field of applicants through a set of pre-qualification criteria to ensure only bidders with a certain level experience and financial strength will move to the decisive competitive bidding phase.
Norway with the auction of three floating wind areas at Utsira North and one bottom-fixed or allocation through qualitative criteria of the 1.5GW fixed-bottom or floating zone Southern North Sea 2 aims to turbo charge offshore wind deployment in the country as a steppingstone to eventually reach 30GW by 2040 – a target Vassbotn thinks could be even higher.
“I agree that the 30GW plant for 2040 is needed. I think the need will certainly be larger.”
Norway typically produces around 140 to 150TWh of electricity per year. In order to meet its Paris climate agreement targets, decarbonise existing industries, ensure growth for new industries – thus “practically electrifying society” – the country will need another 40TWh or more annually by 2030 alone, he added.
“The big volumes will come from offshore wind. The two projects now being awarded this year can alone contribute with 6-7TWh each.”
“There is a marine spatial plan draft coming out in March. It will be exciting to see what is included in that one,” Vassbotn said.
“There is certainly good feedback from Ebba Busch, the [new] energy minister, realising that offshore wind will a play part in the energy mix going forward.”
Sweden currently has only 192MW of operating offshore wind capacity as the government so far hadn’t provided any dedicated support for offshore wind, which it is trying to address now in the form of up to 10GW of free grid links to be provided to developers starting in 2029.