Report on Norwegian companies: “Methods from decommissioning of oil and gas are applicable in offshore wind”
With offshore wind as an increasing energy source in Europe – replacing fossil fuels – a natural question for decommissioning has been: Can Europe benefit from the Norwegian experience?
As part of the European project Decom Tools, representatives from the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences has conducted a number of company visits to gather information about future business in decommissioning in Norway.
Andrés Olivares, Associate Professor at the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, explains:
“Our main findings from the visits shows that many tools and methods originally developed for the offshore oil and gas industry are applicable for offshore wind farms,” says Mr. Olivares.
Depends on volume
According to the Norwegian report Norwegian companies generally prefer as few cutting operations offshore as possible, due to the cost of offshore vessels. Moreover, the decommissioning companies explain that the commercialization of decommissioning of offshore wind turbines depends on the volume.
“One or two turbines is not of any interest but decommissioning a total wind farm consisting of 100 turbines will be very interesting,” says Mr. Olivares:
“Optimization for cost and CO2 footprint will be an important feature in tomorrow’s decommissioning of large wind farms. So far decommissioning for oil and gas structures have been “One of a kind” procedure, as the structures are not standardized in size and configuration. Hence there will be a business opportunity for taking the knowhow from Oil&Gas to decommissioning of large offshore wind farms in the North Sea Region” says Mr. Olivares.
Contact information
Andrés Olivares, Associate Professor, Western Norway University of Applied Sciences
andres.olivares@hvl.no // +4752702878