GALLERY: Plan submission for powering Gullfaks and Snorre with offshore wind

Norwegian oil major Equinor, along with its partners in the Snorre and Gullfaks fields, has submitted a development plan of supplying power from floating offshore wind to the fields via the Hywind Tampen wind farm.

Illustration of the Hywind Tampen project


The Snorre and Gullfaks partners made a final investment decision for the Hywind Tampen offshore wind farm development last week.

Following the submission ceremony, which was scheduled for last Friday afternoon, Equinor  released the photos from the event. Executive vice presidents Pål Eitrheim and Arne Sigve Nylund handed over the PDO’s on behalf of the partners. Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg was also present.

In a statement on Wednesday, Idemitsu, one of the partners in the Snorre field, confirmed the plan had been submitted.

The Hywind offshore wind farm is scheduled to start supplying power in late 2022, following the assembly of floating wind turbines at Gulen Industrihamn in western Norway and transportation to the site in the Norwegian North Sea.

The selected concept for the project is to build an offshore wind farm consisting of the 8MW x 11 wind turbines located some 200 kilometers northwest of Bergen and supply offshore oil and gas platforms with power from floating offshore wind.

This will be the first time an offshore wind farm project will be directly connected to oil and gas platforms.

The Hywind investments will total almost NOK 5 billion ($548.6 million). Norwegian authorities through Enova have made a funding commitment of up to NOK 2.3 billion for the project. In addition, the Business Sector’s NOx Fund decided to support the project by up to NOK 566 million.

By reducing the use of gas turbines on the Snorre and Gullfaks fields, the entire project helps cut CO2 emissions by more than 200,000 tonnes per year. The wind farms will be capable of meeting about 35 percent of the annual power demand of the five Snorre A and B, Gullfaks A, B, and C platforms.


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