These limits remained unchanged in the proposal issued by the Støre government on Wednesday, February 9, regarding the division of the opened areas for offshore wind. The government proposes to divide Utsira Nord into 3-4 tender areas ranging from 250-600 MW and to divide Southern North Sea II into three tender areas of up to 1,500 MW, without exceeding the set maximum limits.
Experience from other countries shows that this type of limitation on development capacity hinders optimal development.
In Scotland, a recent auction round for offshore wind was conducted. When Scottish authorities launched the auction in January last year, they hoped to allocate 10 GW. After the auction, they ended up allocating nearly 2.5 times as much, almost 25 GW. The final size has not yet been determined. Developers are allocated areas with expectations of what will be developed, but there is the possibility for even larger developments if technology permits.
There are no directives in the Offshore Energy Act that required the Solberg government to introduce such a maximum limit. The areas could have been opened without setting a maximum capacity. According to the law, capacity limits should be specified first in the concessions. However, when the Solberg government chose to introduce such a limit, a new royal resolution must be adopted by The King in Counsil to change or remove these limits. However, the Støre government chose to proceed with this limitation in its proposal for further division presented on Wednesday, February 9. In the consultation document, the government mentions that changing the limit will likely require a new environmental impact assessment. We believe that the removal of the maximum limits could have been carried out without further environmental impact assessment.
We know that wind turbines have undergone exponential development over the last 10 years. Therefore, setting a fixed limit on the capacity of the developments may prevent the optimal utilization of potential development areas. Therefore, the Støre government should have scrapped the Solberg government’s unnatural limitations.
