Norwegian authorities are increasingly under pressure to build new capacities for production of renewable power. A government appointed expert group draws up 20 offshore areas suitable for wind power development: four of them are in the Barents Sea, and one (‘Nordavind A’) is located along the maritime border to Russia. Two areas in the North Sea were presented as sites for wind farms in March this year, another 18 acreages are identified now: according to the country’s Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE), there are suitable areas for wind power farms all along the Norwegian coast, from the southernmost waters in the North Sea to the far northern parts of the Barents Sea. According to Norway’s Petroleum Directorate, it is important that new offshore wind farms are not built in areas of major relevance for the oil industry: as exploration drilling gave no major discoveries, the Norwegian oil industry subsequently decided to abandon the area, but some of the proposed areas appear challenging with regard to petroleum. Norwegian authorities intend to build as much as 30 GW of new capacity, almost doubling the country’s existing electricity generation: studies on all the proposed wind power blocks will ensue, and tenders are unlikely to be held before 2025. Also, oil company Vår Energi informed that it had entered into cooperation with wind power developers Odfjell Oceanwind and Source Galileo about a pilot project on floating offshore wind at its Goliat oil field: the project is named ‘GoliatVind’ and aims at increasing the level of renewable power production in the Finnmark region.
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