The Norwegian oil company Equinor is collaborating with engineering expert Moss Maritime, a component of the Italian gas contractor by the name Saipem, centered in Vollsveien, to evaluate an offshore floating solar farm in the Norwegian Sea off the island of Froya, close to Trondheim. The 80 m x 80 m facility will be constructed by the late summer and would be assessed for at least one year. The solar panels would be set up at the peak of under 3 meters just above the surface of the water without offering further technical information, the firm said. To identify how severe weather conditions and rough waters influence its efficiency, Equinor will then evaluate the power production of the plant.
At present, the Norwegian Directorate of Water Resources and Energy is evaluating the venture for authorization. “We can thrive anywhere if we excel here,” stated Hanne Wigum, who works at Equinor as the head in charge of the Solar as well as Wind Tech Unit. Alexander Thogersen, Moss Maritime’s vice president of innovation, also acknowledged that the project has been in progress for the previous 3 years.
“The idea has matured significantly, both economically and technically,” he said. In March, Saipem and Equinor signed an agreement to collectively create a “floating solar panel project technological alternative for the near-coastal applications.” In February 2017, when it unveiled a $197 million fund devoted to sustainability, Equinor declared its plan to join the solar energy market. In March, it was changed its name to Equinor to represent its transformation into renewable energy. It accepted to take a 9.7 percent stake in the solar company Scatec Solar for about $82.4 million in the month of November 2019. Saipem has recently grown into the sector of green energy.
This is the third initiative of study in which Equinor is active. Equinor is now interested in a venture off Sri Lanka, in which a calm water model is being studied to determine how to extract as much power as possible. Furthermore, in the Netherlands, Equinor Company is interested in a program where numerous floating solar power technologies are being studied on a lake.
This offers valuable knowledge of production’s stability and consistency under rockier environments than the floating solar energy at other developed production facilities, Equinor stated. “Due to the exponential development of green energies, we are choosing to undertake many research initiatives in parallel. This helps us to achieve an optimal understanding of this as early as possible,” said Wigum. According to Equinor, other than the research ventures, the organization did not decide on the output of electricity from the floating photovoltaic panels.
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