State Aid: ESA Greenlights Aid to Floating Offshore Wind Farm

The Hywind Tampen project is the highest individual aid award ever approved by ESA.

The development of floating offshore wind farm is part of Norway's aims to reduce its carbon footprint and transition towards a more sustainable energy supply. 

ESA-president: Environmental benefits

“ESA finds that aid to the project is compatible with EEA State Aid rules that aim to promote environmental protection as the positive environmental benefits outweigh the negative effects on competition”, said ESA-president Bente Angell-Hansen.

The goal is to reduce emissions from oil and gas production and in other sectors, and to pave the way for development of floating wind farms as a competitive energy resource globally. The European Green Deal considers increase in offshore wind power production essential for the clean energy transition.

First medium-size floating offshore farm

The Hywind Tampen project aims to cover a third of the total energy need of two oil and gas platforms with wind power instead of gas. It is the first medium-size floating offshore wind farm in Europe, and possibly in the world. The world's first floating wind farm is the Hywind Scotland project, with 30MW installed capacity. Hywind Tampen will also be the first floating offshore wind farm supplying power to oil and gas platforms directly. In the future, the technology could be used for floating offshore wind parks providing renewable energy to the grid.

Global partners

Norway, through the state enterprise Enova, has decided to grant NOK 2.3 billion to Equinor and its partners OMV, Petoro, Idemitsu, DEA and Vår Energi to realize the Hywind Tampen project, which covers around 43 percent of the project's investment costs.