Vattenfall has joined forces with Norwegian company Seagust to bid for offshore wind areas in Norway’s upcoming licensing rounds. The two companies have established a joint venture to participate in the auction, which represents Vattenfall’s entry into the Norwegian offshore wind market.
The companies plan to bid for licenses in both the Utsira Nord and Sørlige Nordsjø II areas in the North Sea, which the Norwegian government opened in 2020 and launched the pre-application period in January 2021, with the licensing rounds expected to take place this year.
Vattenfall’s partner Seagust was established in 2021 by industrial investment companies Arendals Fossekompani (AFK) and Ferd, which decided to team up to compete in Norway’s offshore wind auction.
“Seagust has the ambition to become an offshore wind developer with domestic and international operation, backed by the owners’ experience, capital and industrial network” , Vattenfall said in a press release on 8 February.
AFK is a green-tech investment company that owns energy- and technology-related companies, and is a majority shareholder in Volue, a European technology company offering digitalisation of the clean energy value chain for renewable energy sources, such as offshore wind.
Ferd is investing in Seagust through its Impact Investing arm, which focuses on companies with the potential to have a positive impact on the climate and environment. Ferd Impact Investing’s portfolio includes Wind Catching Systems , the developer of a novel concept for floating wind energy. Ferd is also a 50 per cent owner of Aibel , an established company in the offshore wind sector which will deliver three converter platforms with jackets for Dogger Bank Wind Farm as one of its latest projects.
The Norwegian government opened the pre-application period last year after identifying the two sites for the development of up to 4.5 GW of floating and bottom-fixed offshore wind capacity in 2020.
The government said that Utsira Nord, an area of 1,000 square kilometres located northwest of Stavanger, was suitable for floating wind power, while Sørlige Nordsjø II, covering some 2,590 square kilometres and bordering the Danish sector of the North Sea, was deemed suitable for bottom-fixed wind power turbines.