The Norwegian Ministry of Energy has notified the European Free Trade Association’s (EFTA) Surveillance Authority (ESA) of the support model for a floating wind project in the Utsira Nord area and expects to open the tender for the area as soon as ESA has approved the model.
The tender will be carried out in two stages, starting with the Norwegian government allocating three sites through a competition based on qualitative criteria.
After the floating wind sites have been allocated, there will be a maturation period of about two years, followed by a competitive auction to obtain state support.
Through this tender, Norway will award a subsidy for one project of up to 500 MW to the developer that requires the least state aid to realise the project. The funding is capped at NOK 35 billion (approximately EUR 3 billion) and will be provided as investment support.
The talks between the Norwegian government and ESA on the country’s offshore wind subsidy schemes have been underway since 2023, for both the Southern North Sea II (Sørlige Nordsjø II) tender for fixed-bottom offshore wind projects and the floating wind tender for the Utsira Nord areas.
For the Southern North Sea II tender, the government got the state aid scheme approval from the ESA in December 2023 . The competitive tender for pre-qualified developers was launched after that and the winner was announced in March 2024 .
Shortly after completing the fixed-bottom tender in March last year, the Norwegian government announced it was postponing the process for Utsira Nord to 2025. The Ministry of Energy said that based on the dialogue with the EFTA Surveillance Authority, it had decided to establish and notify about “a common model for state aid” for the floating wind area before project sites are awarded.
As ESA has now been notified of the state aid model and is processing the notification, the Ministry noted that this was the first time such a model has been processed under state aid regulations and that the model was developed in dialogue with the offshore wind industry and ESA.
“The proposed support model will take the development of floating offshore wind and Utsira Nord a big step forward, and I look forward to announcing the competition as soon as possible after ESA has approved the model. The government’s offshore wind investment will continue on a steady course” , said Norway’s Minister of Energy, Terje Aasland .