Norway powers offshore oil and gas installations with wind energy

Nov. 14 (UPI) -- Powering offshore oil and natural gas installations is part of the national effort to improve the environmental footprint of the fossil fuels industry, Norwegian energy company Equinor said Monday.

Equinor announced that turbines started spinning from the floating, offshore Hywind Tampen facility in the Norwegian waters of the North Sea. The company said the wind installation will eventually supply about 35% of the power necessary to run the infrastructure at the Gullfaks and Snorre fields. That in turn will abate around 200,000 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

"Hywind Tampen cuts emissions from the oil and gas industry and increases the gas export to Europe," said Kjetil Hove, the vice president for Norwegian exploration and production at Equinor. "This is an important contribution towards transforming the Norwegian continental shelf from an oil and gas province to a broad energy province."

Norway is a major crude oil and natural gas producer, helping the European and British economies cope with the marginalization of those products from Russia. It's unique, however, in that its own economy is powered almost completely by renewable energy resources.

That's a standout among producers and follows warnings from world leaders at the COP27 environmental summit in Egypt that oil and gas operators need to do more to clean up their act.

Equinor said seven of the 11 turbines planned for the Hywind Tampen facility will start operations this year. Even with just those seven, however, the company said it would boast the largest capacity ever for any floating wind farm at 60 megawatts.

Another 22 MW of power are possible once all the turbines are installed.