Equinor postpones further development of Trollvind indefinitely. They write it in one press release afternoon.
They wrote in a press release that the project was no longer commercially viable.
– The idea and concept we launched last year, we’re putting that aside for now. That’s not to say Troll and Oseberg can’t be a relevant area for offshore wind in the future, but with the launch of Trollvind last year, we’re putting it aside for now, Magnus Frantzen Eidsvold, press officer at Equinor tells NRK.
High costs and a tight schedule are two of the reasons Equinor now sees itself having to delay the project.
– This is disappointing from Equinor. They blame it on increased costs but continue with plans for Sørlige Nordsjø 2 and Utsira nord, says SV Torgeir vice president Knag Fylkesnes, and adds:
– They don’t take seriously the consequences that power from shore has on mainland industry and electricity bills for ordinary people, and they don’t prioritize electrification opportunities with floating offshore wind for the Norwegian supplier industry. It’s serious about Equinor’s credibility in going green.
The Troll A platform was one of those that would benefit from offshore wind turbines.
Photo: Øyvind Knoph Askeland
The project was launched last year
In the summer of 2022, Equinor has launched plans for a floating offshore wind farm in the Troll area of the North Sea, located 65 kilometers west of Bergen.
“Unfortunately, we no longer see any opportunity to bring forward our original initiative of operating a floating offshore wind farm before 2030,” says Equinor’s Head of Renewables Norway at Equinor, Siri Espedal Kindem, in the press release.
The aim was that the turbines at the Troll field would supply electricity to Kollsnes in Vestland, lower prices in the Bergen region and help electrify the oil platform.
In addition, they had to accelerate investment in offshore wind power in Norway.
– The most dangerous thing is that today we need a force that we cannot cover. We say no to new green jobs today in western Norway because we don’t have enough energy. Then Trollfind was a welcome project because it would, in fact, cover about 3 percent of Norway’s total needs, says Monika Milland, managing director of the Bergen Business Council.
Monica Milland says the cancellation is a very serious and discouraging decision.
It requests that the authorities also see the need that exists in Western Norway, and so can contribute money to get the project up and running again.
– We really need this, you say.
no longer realistic
In April of this year, the start of construction of Trollvind was postponed. The company then said that it was no longer realistic to get it done by 2027. So the whole project was postponed indefinitely.
Equinor, along with its partners Petoro, TotalEnergies, Shell and ConocoPihillips in the Troll and Oseberg fields, are the players behind these plans in the North Sea.
According to Equinor, it has been estimated that Trollvind should be able to deliver power for less than NOK 1/kWh. Production could be around 4.3 TWh.
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