Equinor Pulls the Plug on North Sea Floating Wind Farm

Norwegian energy company Equinor has pulled the plug on plans for a large floating offshore wind farm in the Troll area of the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.

Known as Trollvind, the project envisioned a 1 gigawatt (GW) capacity wind farm that would supply electricity to the Troll and Oseberg offshore fields through an onshore connection point. Equinor launched the project in June 2022 alongside partners Petoro, TotalEnergies, Shell and ConocoPhillips.

Equinor today said the its decision to indefinitely postpone further development of the project was based on several challenges facing the project and broader offshore wind industry, including technology availability, time constraints, and rising costs that have made the project commercially unsustainable. Equinor had planned to develop the project without any financial subsidies.

Equinor had previously announced reduced activity in the project due to technical, regulatory, and commercial challenges to the project.

“We appreciate all the positive response towards Trollvind from politicians, suppliers, and authorities,” said Siri Espedal Kindem, vice president of renewables Norway. “Trollvind was a bold industrial plan to solve pressing issues concerning electrification of oil and gas installations, bringing much needed power to the Bergen-area, while accelerating floating offshore wind power in Norway. Unfortunately, we no longer see a way forward to deliver on our original concept of having an operational wind farm well before 2030.”

Equinor says authorities have been informed about the decision.

In announcing the decision, Equinor reiterated its ambition to lead in building an offshore wind industry in Norway. “The knowledge and learning from working on Trollvind will be applied to other projects as Equinor remain committed to developing floating offshore wind power at Utsira Nord and outside Norway,” the company said.

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