Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has awarded Vista Analyse, Guidehouse, and Procurex the contract for the provision of consultancy services for the offshore wind tender the Norwegian Government will soon open for the Southern North Sea II ( Sørlige Nordsjø II ) area.
The contract, concluded on 24 August, follows the tender that the Ministry opened at the end of May ahead of auctioning off the first 1.5 GW of the total of 3 GW of offshore wind capacity to be awarded for development.
Led by Vista Analyse, the companies will assist with designing the auction model for Southern North Sea II, and with carrying out the actual auction for the first phase of Southern North Sea II.
“Professionally, this is a challenging assignment. But we are confident that we have put together a team that can solve the task. Together with our partners in Germany and the US, we have both knowledge of specific Norwegian considerations and practical experience from offshore wind auctions in many countries” , said Haakon Vennemo , the project manager and CEO at Vista Analyse.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy will announce the auction for the first 1,500 MW in Southern North Sea II during the first quarter of next year, with allocation scheduled for the summer of 2023.
The project/s selected in the first phase will not be interconnected to the grids of other countries and will deliver all of the generated electricity to the Norwegian grid, while those selected in the second auction will have the option to export the generated electricity outside Norway.
According to earlier information on the offshore wind area, the first turbines in Southern North Sea II could be installed in the second half of this decade.