Norway opens floating offshore wind tender
OSLO, May 19 (Reuters) - Norway has launched the first part of its long-awaited inaugural floating wind tender, it said on Monday, offering subsidies to the winners despite the challenges faced by the global offshore wind industry.
The industry has grappled with skyrocketing costs, higher interest rates and supply chain bottlenecks, prompting governments to halt or postpone tenders due to a lack of interest from bidders.
In a first step, the process foresees bidders being awarded the rights to develop commercial projects of up to 500 megawatts (MW) in capacity at the Utsira Nord site off the country's south-west coast.
The winners will then have two years to mature the projects before competing in an auction for subsidies in 2028-2029, to be provided as a direct grant.
"Utsira Nord is an important first step in the development of commercial floating offshore wind development on the Norwegian continental shelf," Norway's Energy Minister Terje Aasland said in a statement.
Norway has agreed to cap total subsidies at Utsira Nord at 35 billion Norwegian crowns ($3.37 billion), reflecting the technology's relative immaturity.
"The model for allocating project areas and state support is adapted to floating offshore wind and will contribute to both technology development and cost reductions for subsequent projects," Aasland said.
Norway is not part of the European Union but participates in the bloc's internal market, requiring it to comply with EU rules, including on state aid, a process that is managed by the EFTA surveillance authority (ESA).
The latter approved Norway's proposal to tender acreage suitable for floating wind farms at Utsira Nord in April.
Floating wind turbines are deemed particularly suitable for greater water depths where fixing the foundation into the seabed is not possible.
Norway awarded a first bottom-fixed offshore wind farm licence in 2024 but will focus solely on floating wind farm development when it next announces new tenders.
($1 = 10.3723 Norwegian crowns)
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Telegraph
14 hours ago
- Telegraph
‘More wind farms in the South' under Miliband's regional energy blueprint
Plans to overhaul Britain's energy market being studied by Ed Miliband would prompt a surge in the number of wind farms in the South of England, officials have confirmed. Fintan Slye, the chief executive of the National Energy System Operator (Neso), said breaking the electricity market into regions under so-called zonal pricing would encourage developers to put turbines up in the South. He backed the idea and said the current system of setting power prices nationally was giving renewable developers the wrong 'price signals' over where to locate wind farms. In a speech at the Royal Society, Mr Slye said he wanted renewable developers to 'move south' and build more wind and solar farms closer to where demand is strongest. Mr Slye said: '[Zonal pricing] will incentivise the development of wind and solar farms in southern areas but it will also encourage energy intensive developments in the North and Scotland.' Under zonal pricing, Britain would be split into regions and energy prices in each area would be set based on local supply and demand. In practice, households in the South would pay more than those in the North – where most wind farms are concentrated.
BBC News
14 hours ago
- BBC News
Plans for new solar farm on 108 acres of land in Devon
Plans for a new solar farm on 108 acres (44 hectares) of land is being proposed in Development, which builds and operates renewable energy projects, is applying for planning permission from North Devon Council for farmland south of Buttercombe Lane, Braunton, after holding two public consultation events last farm is being proposed together with a sub-station, cabling, CCTV and Devon Council is due to decide on the planning application at a future date, but people have until 6 July to make representations. Offset annual electricity A recent survey has revealed 40% of respondents opposed the development, with 13% in support and 47% were raised around the scale of the project, visual impact, ecology and biodiversity applicant's planning documents stated it had made changes to the design and layout, including a larger buffer zone between the development and ancient woodland and other locally important has also amended a cable route, reducing the need for hedgerow removal, and landscaping and biodiversity cumulative effect of solar farms, of which there are four others in the area, was also highlighted as a concern. The 15MW (megawatt) solar array would offset annual electricity usage of approximately 8,600 homes and save approximately 4,275 tonnes of CO2 per year, the applicants site is within 2km (1.2 miles) of four sites of special scientific interest (SSSI).The company's environmental statement has concluded the effects on protected areas would be "negligible and not significant" because of limited habitat changes and enhancement measures in the England said the application "successfully avoided causing harm" to the nearby Grade II* listed Ash Barton farmhouse and its estate as far as possible, through "buffer planting, undeveloped zones, bolstering of existing hedges, etc" and therefore it does not lighting would not be required, but pole-mounted CCTV would be in place around the perimeter, the application was expected to take about six months, with up to 12 two-way HGV trips a day, but none on Sundays or bank holidays, it added.
Coin Geek
15 hours ago
- Coin Geek
How TEA guarantees trust in accounting
Homepage > News > Business > How TEA guarantees trust in accounting Getting your Trinity Audio player ready... Traditional accounting systems are notorious for fraud and errors, especially double-entry bookkeeping. In today's economy, enterprises need a clear picture of their finances to save money where they can, and for this, they need 100% accurate information. With all the frontier technology available today, enterprises must find a way to guarantee their books are accurate, both for themselves and for auditors. Ironically, the solution lies in a concept that was fleshed out by Ian Grigg in 2005, but before we get there, let's examine the shortcomings of double-entry accounting. title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""> 'The first one is the oldest one, which is that you can have several books. You can show one book to the tax authority, and you can show another set of books to the bank and they could be different,' shared former auditor Torje Vingen Sunde, Co-founder & CTO of Abendum. 'The other shortcoming of double-entry accounting is that they are in data silos. They don't talk together,' he said. Blockchain and artificial intelligence (AI) expert Konstantinos Sgantzos, head of the environmental subsector of Megalopolis lignite mining directorate, is also a close friend of Grigg's and greatly admires his work. When asked to elaborate on the shortcomings of double-entry accounting, Sgantzos described it as 'an opinion' rather than a truth. 'You know, it is my opinion that my book says that, and that is true. And your book has your opinion. And we need to sink our opinions. So, it is my word versus yours. And if it happens to me and I lose the book, what happens? I must accept your truth from mine,' Sgantzos told CoinGeek. According to Grigg, double-entry accounting simply represents the founder's view of the company's situation. 'It's not reality,' he said. The solution to these challenges associated with traditional accounting systems can be found with Triple Entry Accounting (TEA), a concept Grigg is the co-inventor of. 'Triple entry accounting creates a set of records which are facts, as opposed to the old way, which is a set of records which are opinions. On those facts, you can automatically analyze them, such that part of the process of auditing is done for you automatically by the software and other parts are a lot easier,' Grigg explained. 'Now, this completely changes the paradigm of accounting. Accounting's no longer an opinion,' he said. Triple entry accounting does not turn bad people into good people. It creates a system where the full set of real transactions can be verified and cannot be altered or ignored. A @iang_fc explains, what Sam Bankman-Fried did by leaving out key transactions could not happen with… Sgantzos added, 'Triple-entry accounting basically expands upon double-entry bookkeeping. In essence, we had this debit and credit books, and the triple-entry accounting adds a third record that is basically a cryptographic proof that both books are in sync.' Juan Ignacio Ibañez, the General Secretary of the MiCA Crypto Alliance, is also a triple-entry accounting enthusiast who elaborated on the system's use cases. 'What it gives you is reliability at the basis of the bookkeeping, which then translates into reliability for the entire accounting edifice, and it also solves the problem of reconciliation by turning reconciliation from an activity to necessity, intrinsic reconciliation that is always there,' he shared. While reliable bookkeeping means reduced costs and increased efficiency, Ibañez said its easier for some industries to upgrade than others. 'The potential for triple-entry accounting in supply chains, for example, could be massive, but it will take a long time. More financial industries have more short-term potential, but I just think auditing in itself is the main industry to be disrupted in the short run,' he said. One question to be answered is whether triple-entry accounting systems should be blockchain-enabled. Blockchain itself may be an iteration of triple-entry accounting, but it can also enhance it. According to Grigg, it all depends on your environment. 'The easy answer is yes, just use a blockchain. It's not the only way. It might not be the best way. So the question then is, why would you use a blockchain?' 'This always comes back to the question of what's your environment? Who are your people? Are you in an adversarial world where if you and I are doing trade and I happen to be a bit naive, can you screw me over? And if that's the world we live in, blockchain is great for that because it locks everything down,' Grigg explained. For Sunde, who is looking through an auditor's lens, integrating a public, scalable, global blockchain such as BSV into a triple-entry accounting system is very important. 'With the introduction of blockchain this become much more feasible because this global ledger, you can use that to log everything. It makes it more compatible,' he said. Ibañez pointed out how utilizing blockchain brings decentralization to the triple-entry accounting system. 'The role of a third party in TEA is very limited, but you still need a third party for timestamping, ordering, you decentralize that bit as well with blockchain. And at the same time, you have an entire messaging and a data storage network that can be global, so it increases the potential of triple entry accounting,' he said. Blockchain-enabled or not, triple-entry accounting is clearly an enormous upgrade for accounting systems across all industries. Thanks to triple-entry accounting, we can build a more transparent accounting future, guaranteeing with 100% certainty that our numbers are always accurate. Watch: Triple Entry Accounting with Ian Grigg
