World’s Largest Floating Offshore Wind Farm Officially Opens
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Norwegian energy major Equinor, together with its partners, will inaugurate today the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm, Hywind Tampen
The story is according to Reuters.
This page on the Equinor web site, outlines the project.
Hywind Tampen is the world’s first floating wind farm built specifically to power offshore oil and gas installations, and is now supplying electricity to Equinor’s oil and gas fields Snorre and Gullfaks in the Norwegian North Sea.
With a system capacity of 88 MW it is also the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm and an important step forward in industrialising solutions and reducing costs for future offshore wind power projects.
With Hywind Tampen now operational, Equinor is now operating nearly half (47 percent) of the world’s offshore floating wind capacity.
This floating wind farm powering oil and gas fields will be the first of many.
N-Sea To Connect German Offshore Wind Farm To Dutch Gas Platform
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
Dutch upstream oil and gas company, ONE-Dyas, has awarded N-Sea with a contract to install a subsea power cable between the Riffgat offshore wind farm in the German North Sea and the new, to-be-built N05-A gas production platform.
At a first look it appears that wind power is being used to power the gas production platform.
Other points from the article include.
- The distance of the connecting cable is ten kilometres.
- The Dutch government approved the scheme in June 2022.
- A final investment decision was made in September 2022.
I have some thoughts and further information.
Borkum, Rottumerplaat and Schiermonnikoog
The article says this about the position of the gas platform.
The N05-A platform will be installed some 20 kilometres north of the islands of Borkum, Rottumerplaat and Schiermonnikoog, and approximately one and a half kilometres from German waters.
This Google Map shows the three islands.
Note.
- Borkum is the horseshoe-shaped German island in the North-East corner of the map.
- Schiermonnikoog is the long and thin island in the West.
- Rottumerplaat is the larger of the two Dutch islands in middle map.
- Eemhaven, which I wrote about in The Train Station At The Northern End Of The Netherlands, is in the South-East corner of the map.
Shipping routes run up the River Ems and German-Dutch border in the East of the map
Riffgat Wind Farm
This web page on the EWE web site, gives this description of the wind farm.
EWE has built the first commercial wind farm in the German North Sea in summer 2013 with Riffgat. The modern wind farm has a total capacity of 108 megawatts of power and can supply around 120,000 households with environmentally friendly electricity. In just 14 months of construction, the 30 wind turbines of the 3.6 megawatt class have been installed 15 kilometers off the north seas of Borkum. The rotor diameter of the units is 120 meters, while the hub height is 90 meters, which corresponds to the height of the Bremen dome. Overall, the plants are 150 meters high from the water surface to the top rotor blade tip. They are founded on 70 meter long steel foundations (monopiles), 40 meters deep in the sea bottom. The water depth in the wind farm is between 18 and 23 meters. In addition to the wind power plants, Riffgat also consists of a substation which transports the generated electricity to a better transportable voltage level.
It looks a pretty standard 100 MW wind farm with fixed foundations.
The N05-A Platform
The article says this about the N05-A project.
The N05-A project is part of the so-called GEMS area, an area approximately 20 to 80 kilometres north of the Ems estuary. ONE-Dyas, together with partners Hansa Hydrocarbons and EBN, aims to extract natural gas from the N05-A field as well as surrounding fields in the German and Dutch North Sea.
The GEMS area has a web site with a URL with a .co.uk extension.
It has an informative video, which I don’t think would go down with Dutch chapter of Just Stop Oil.
The North Sea’s First Gas Platform To Run Entirely On Wind Power
The article says this about the N05-A project.
While the N05-A platform will not be the first in the North Sea to run on wind energy, it will be the first to do so entirely.
Hywind Tampen floating wind farm will be the first.
Conclusion
This looks like a good pragmatic solution to me.
I can see more connections between offshore wind farms and oil and gas facilities all over the world.
Hywind Tampen
In Equinor Sets Sights On Gigawatt-Scale Floating Offshore Wind Projects In Celtic Sea, I said this about Hywind Tampen.
Equinor is also currently constructing the 88 MW Hywind Tampen project in Norway, which will be the largest floating offshore wind farm in the world when completed in 2023.
This page on the Equinor web site gives more details of Hywind Tampen.
- Hywind Tampen is a floating wind farm under construction that will provide electricity for the Snorre and Gullfaks oil and gas fields in the Norwegian North Sea.
- It will be the world’s first renewable power for offshore oil and gas.
- With a system capacity of 88 MW it will also be the world’s largest floating offshore wind farm.
- The wind farm will consist of eleven 8 MW turbines.
When Hywind Tampen is operational, Equinor will operate nearly half (47 percent) of the world’s floating wind capacity.
This paragraph from the Equinor web page is significant.
The wind farm is estimated to meet about 35% of the annual electricity power demand of the five Snorre A and B, and Gullfaks A, B and C platforms. In periods of higher wind speed this percentage will be significantly higher.
I take this to mean that the gas turbines that currently supply the five platforms will be left in place and that their output will be replaced by wind power, when it is available.
The INTOG Program
I described this in What Is INTOG?, and it is the UK’s program, that includes electrification of rigs and platforms.
The first leases under INTOG would appear to be expected in March 2023.
Decarbonisation Of Offshore Operations Around The World
I’m sure that if Hywind Tampen and/or INTOG is successful, that the technology will be used where possible around the world.
The Anonymous Widower 