North Sea Tampen area floating wind farm under construction

Oct. 2, 2020
Steel cutting has started on Equinor’s Hywind Tampen wind farm at Kværner’s yard in Stord, western Norway.

Offshore staff

STAVANGER, Norway – Steel cutting has started on Equinor’s Hywind Tampen wind farm at Kværner’s yard in Stord, western Norway.

Kværner’s construction responsibilities include 11 floating concrete hulls for the wind turbines.

Hywind Tampen, which will be in the Norwegian North Sea, will be the first floating offshore wind project to supply renewable power for oil and gas installations, according to Equinor.

Total capacity of 88 MW should satisfy around 35% of the annual power needs on the Snorre A and B and Gullfaks A, B, and C platforms.

The goal is to cut emissions from the Gullfaks and Snorre fields by more than 200,000 metric tons/yr.

“By using larger turbines, concrete substructures, new technology and a new assembly method, we’re well on our way toward delivering on the objective to reduce costs by more than 40% compared with Hywind Scotland,” said Hywind Tampen project director Olav-Bernt Haga.

“If more major floating offshore wind projects are realized in the future, it will be possible to reduce costs even further, and we could see a development in cost reductions equivalent to the one we’ve seen in fixed foundation offshore wind.”

Equinor sees a potential for further floating offshore wind projects in Norway, the UK, Europe, the US, and Asia.

When Hywind Tampen project is operational in 2022, the company claims it will be operating one-third of the global floating offshore wind capacity.

10/02/2020