A wind farm off the coast of Norway began supplying electricity to active oil and gas platforms in 2023 C.E. — a first in the history of the fossil fuel industry. The Hywind Tampen floating offshore wind farm, operated by Norwegian energy company Equinor, went online during a ceremony attended by Crown Prince Haakon, marking a milestone in both renewable energy and the long effort to cut emissions from oil and gas operations.
At a glance
- Floating offshore wind: Hywind Tampen’s 11 turbines use Equinor’s Hywind floating foundation concept, giving the farm an installed capacity of 88 MW — making it the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm at the time of its launch.
- CO2 emissions reduction: The facility is expected to cut annual carbon dioxide emissions by around 200,000 tons from the Gullfaks and Snorre oil fields in the North Sea.
- Norwegian suppliers: Approximately 60% of the project’s contract values went to Norwegian companies, creating green jobs and positioning Norway as a global hub for offshore wind technology.
Why this matters for oil and gas
Oil and gas platforms are energy-hungry. They typically burn fossil fuels on-site to generate the electricity they need to keep running. Hywind Tampen changes that equation for five platforms in the North Sea.
The wind farm is estimated to cover around 35% of the annual electricity demand for the Snorre A and B platforms and the Gullfaks A, B, and C platforms. That share may sound modest, but at scale — across hundreds of platforms worldwide — this model could represent a significant pathway to cutting operational emissions from existing oil and gas infrastructure without waiting for those fields to close.
Kjetil Hove, Equinor’s Executive Vice President for the Norwegian continental shelf, has said the project gave both Equinor and its supply chain valuable technical insights that will support the broader scale-up of offshore wind in Norway and internationally. The wind farm is managed remotely from Equinor’s office in Bergen.
A faster, cheaper path than its predecessor
Hywind Tampen did not emerge from nowhere. It builds directly on the Hywind Scotland project — the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, which launched in 2017 C.E. and proved the concept was technically viable in deep, rough waters.
The leap between the two projects is striking. Adjusting for price changes since 2016 C.E. and 2017 C.E., the investment cost per installed megawatt for Hywind Tampen came in roughly 35% lower than Hywind Scotland. That cost reduction — achieved in about five years from conception to commissioning — reflects a maturing supply chain and hard-won engineering knowledge.
Siri Kindem, head of Equinor’s renewables business in Norway, pointed to the planning, construction, and commissioning of the project as proof of the company’s expanding capabilities in floating wind. The International Energy Agency has identified floating wind as a key technology for unlocking vast offshore wind resources in waters too deep for fixed-bottom turbines — the kind of water that covers much of the world’s continental shelves.
Building a new industry from existing strengths
One of the more intriguing aspects of Hywind Tampen is the way it transfers skills rather than discarding them. Norway’s oil and gas sector has spent decades developing expertise in offshore engineering, deep-water operations, and subsea infrastructure. Equinor has openly stated its intention to use those foundations to build a competitive offshore wind industry.
With 60% of contract values awarded to Norwegian suppliers, the project has already seeded that transition domestically. New economic activity and green employment have followed, and Norway is now regarded as one of the leading countries in floating wind technology development.
From a global perspective, the Global Wind Energy Council estimates that floating wind could eventually access more than 80% of the world’s offshore wind resource — a vast energy reserve that fixed-bottom technology simply cannot reach. Projects like Hywind Tampen are the proving grounds that will determine how quickly that resource becomes practical.
What still needs work
It is worth being clear-eyed about what Hywind Tampen is and is not. At 88 MW, it remains a relatively small facility compared to large fixed-bottom offshore wind farms, some of which now exceed 1,000 MW. Floating wind technology is still significantly more expensive per megawatt than conventional offshore wind, and cost reductions, while real, need to continue at pace if the technology is to compete broadly without subsidy. The project also supplies power to ongoing oil extraction, meaning its emissions savings exist within — not outside — continued fossil fuel production.
Still, every cost curve has to start somewhere. The 35% cost reduction between Hywind Scotland and Hywind Tampen happened over roughly six years. If the industry can maintain that pace of learning, floating wind’s economics look very different a decade from now.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Clean Energy Revolution
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- Marie-Louise Eta becomes the first female head coach in men’s top-flight European football
- The Good News for Humankind archive on renewable energy
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