The Hywind Tampen floating wind farm in the North Sea has begun producing power from its first turbine.
Power production started at 12:55 CET on 13th November, with the power delivered to the Gullfaks A platform in the North Sea.
Owned by the partners developing the Gullfaks and Snorre oilfields, the Hywind Tampen wind farm is expected to meet about 35% of the electricity demand of the two fields. This will cut CO2 emissions from the fields by about 200,000 tonnes per year.
Seven of eleven turbines are scheduled to come on stream during the year. The last four turbines have been assembled this autumn and will be installed on the field during a weather window next year.
Even with just seven turbines on stream Hywind Tampen will be the world’s largest floating wind farm with a capacity of 60MW.
Equinor executive vice-president for projects, drilling and procurement Geir Tungesvik said: “I am proud that we have now started production at Hywind Tampen, Norway’s first and the world’s largest floating wind farm. This is a unique project, the first wind farm in the world powering producing oil and gas installations.”
“The Norwegian content of the project is about 60%. This shows that we, together with our partners and suppliers, are building a new industry on the shoulders of the oil and gas business utilising the competencies we together have acquired over many decades.”
Kjetil Hove, Equinor’s executive vice president for Exploration and Production Norway, added: “Hywind Tampen cuts emissions from the oil and gas industry and increases the gas export to Europe. This is an important contribution towards transforming the Norwegian continental shelf from an oil and gas province to a broad energy province.
“Just a few years ago, no one would have believed that offshore platforms could be powered by electricity from floating wind turbines. Well, now we have started.”