Energy major Shell may potentially pull out of an ongoing tender for Norway’s first commercial offshore wind farm.
Question marks remain over the project’s profitability, the company’s country manager said at a conference in Oslo, reported by Reuters.
Shell, which is part of a consortium with two local Norwegian utilities, has applied for pre-qualification to build Norway’s first bottom-fixed offshore wind farm at Soerlige Nordsjoe 2, in the North Sea.
However, the business case was “not looking great”, Shell’s Norway country manager Marianne Olsnes, told an energy conference in Oslo today.
“We might not bid,” Olsnes said during a panel discussion.
Energy companies were asked to develop certain parts of the project that are usually handled by grid operators, while the power is to be delivered to a market that is not interested in higher-cost electricity, she said.
The tender offers the opportunity to build bottom-fixed wind turbines with a capacity of 1.5GW.