Equinor pulls brake on 1-GW Trollvind floating wind project

Norwegian state-owned energy group Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR) said on Monday it would postpone indefinitely development works on the 1-GW Trollvind floating wind farm off western Norway that would have powered oil and gas platforms in the North Sea.

“This decision is based on several challenges facing the project, including technology availability, rising cost and a strained timetable to deliver on the original concept,” Equinor said in a press release.

The move comes after Equinor already scaled down its activities in the project due to technical, regulatory and commercial challenges.

The Trollvind project was announced in June 2022 as a proposal for a floating wind farm located some 65 kilometres (40.4 miles) off the coast of Bergen and capable of generating around 4.3 TWh of electricity per year.

The wind farm was to supply electricity to the Troll and Oseberg oil and gas fields, which Equinor operates in partnership with French multi-energy group TotalEnergies SE (EPA:TTE), UK oil giant Shell Plc (LON:SHEL), US peer ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) and Petoro, Norway's state-owned exploration and production licences manager.

At the time of the announcement, the partners were hoping to take the investment decision in 2023 and have the wind farm up and running in 2027.

“Unfortunately, we no longer see a way forward to deliver on our original concept of having an operational wind farm well before 2030,” said Siri Espedal Kindem, vice president of renewables Norway.

That original concept included realising the Trollvind project without financial support, but with rising costs, the project was no longer commercially sustainable, Equinor said.

Changes in the technical solutions due to preferred technology not being available made the concept less viable, and time was always going to be a challenge with the proposed timeline, the company added.

Choose your newsletter by Renewables Now. Join for free!