World’s Largest Floating Offshore Wind Farm Officially Opens

Floating Wind

August 23, 2023, by Adnan Memija

Norwegian energy major Equinor, together with its partners, will inaugurate today the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Tampen, according to Reuters.

Artist's impression of Hywind Tampen floating wind farm and the Snorre platform — Equinor/Hywind Tampen floating wind farm Snorre platform/Illustration

The Hywind Tampen floating offshore wind farm will be officially opened today by Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and HRH Crown Prince Haakon of Norway.

Equinor’s partners on this project include Petoro, OMV, Vår Energi, Wintershall Dea, and INPEX Idemitsu Norge AS.

Apart from being the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm in operation, Hywind Tampen is also the first wind farm in the world that is supplying electricity to oil and gas platforms.

The 88 MW wind farm delivered its first power in November 2022 to the Gullfaks A platform offshore Norway. In May 2023, Hywind Tampen started delivering power to the Snorre oil and gas field in the Norwegian North Sea as well.

The project is expected to meet 35 per cent of the electrical power demand on the Gullfaks and Snorre fields. This will cut CO2 emissions from the fields by about 200,000 tonnes per year, according to Equinor.

Hywind Tampen features 11 Siemens Gamesa 8.6 MW wind turbines with the first unit being installed in June last year approximately 140 kilometres offshore at the construction site.

The floating offshore wind farm was initially scheduled to be completed by the end of 2022, but due to some deviations found in steel quality in four tower sections and supply chain bottlenecks, the completion of the wind farm was postponed to 2023.

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Norway has set a target of reaching net zero by 2050 and has committed to establishing 30 GW of offshore wind power by 2040.

In March, the country opened the first offshore wind tenders for applications. The combined capacity offered in the first auction round is 3 GW split equally across two areas on the Norwegian continental shelf: Southern North Sea II (Sørlige Nordsjø II) and Utsira Nord.

According to a recent analysis, Norway has the potential to develop up to 338 GW of offshore wind in areas with a low level of conflict, of which 156 GW and up to 219 GW would account for floating wind, while between 85 GW and 119 GW would account for fixed-bottom wind.

The analysis was conducted by Multiconsult and commissioned by the industry organisation Norwegian Offshore Wind, Equinor, Source Galileo, Hafslund, and Deep Wind Offshore.