Equinor Launches the World's Largest Floating Offshore Wind Farm ‘Hywind Tampen’

Equinor, a Norwegian State-ownedbroad energy company, announced the official opening of the Hywind Tampenoffshore wind farm on August 23rd. With a capacity of 88MW, Hywind Tampen now stands as the world's largest floating offshore wind farm. It signifies a transformative step, with the Gullfaks and Snorre oil and gas fields in the North Sea becoming the first globally to operate using offshore wind energy. The facility is expected to cover around 35% of these platforms' annual power demand.

“Today marks a new milestone for Equinor in the offshore wind industry. Hywind Tampen demonstrates economies of scale in floating offshore wind. Leveraging insights and expertise from this project, we are confident about the role offshore wind can play as a significant energy source in Korea – and that we can play a crucial role in taking floating offshore wind to Korea" says Bjørn Inge Braathen, Equinor Korea’s Country Managing Director.

"Hywind Tampen is expected to reduce CO2 emissions with 200,000 tonnes annually from key oil and gas producers in the North Sea. It is a bold investment in a pioneering project from the Gullfaks and Snorre partnerships and Enova. The project development has given us and the supplier industry valuable experience that will be important when we work together to develop offshore wind further in Norway and globally, scaling up for the future. I would like to thank everyone who has contributed, this is industrial development we can be proud of" says Kjetil Hove, Equinor's EVP for Norwegian Continental Shelf.

Enova and the Norwegian Business Sector's NoX fund have supported the project with NOK 2.3 billion (approx. KRW 290 billion) and NOK 566 million (approx. KRW 71.4 billion) respectively to stimulate technology development within offshore wind power and emission reductions.

The investment forecast for the project is now about NOK 7.4 billion, equivalent to KRW 930 billion.The project has significant cost improvements compared to the Hywind Scotland floating offshore wind farm. Adjusted for price developments since 2016/2017, the investment cost for Hywind Tampen is about 35 percent lower per installed MW.

In five years, the project has gone from drawing board to completion. 60 percent of the contract values in the project have been awarded to Norwegian suppliers. This has contributed to new activity, green jobs, local spin-offs and technology development for future floating offshore wind projects in a growing industry.

Facts about Hywind Tampen - Hywind Tampen - Equinor

• Partners: Equinor, Petoro, OMV, Vår Energi, WintershallDea and INPEX Idemitsu
• Hywind Tampen has a system capacity of 88 MW
• The wind farm is located about 140 kilometres from shore
• Water depth: between 260 and 300 metres
• Began power production in the third quarter of 2022 and is fully operational as of August 2023.
• The turbines are mounted on floating concrete structures with a common anchoring system.
• Enova and the Norwegian Business Sector's NoX fund have supported the project with NOK 2.3 billion and NOK 566 million respectively to stimulate technology development within offshore wind power and emission reductions.
• The Norwegian government has set an ambition to award acreage equivalent to 30 GW of offshore wind by 2040. Hywind Tampen is the first offshore wind farm in Norway, demonstrating the opportunities for renewable power production on the Norwegian continental shelf.