OSLO, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Norway's multinational oil and gas company Equinor said Tuesday that it and its partners had decided to explore the possibilities of supplying two North Sea oil fields with power from a floating offshore wind farm.
This could be the first time an offshore wind farm is directly connected to oil and gas platforms, the company said in a statement.
The project at the Gullfaks and Snorre fields forecasts a reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by more than 200,000 tonnes per year, equivalent to the emissions from 100,000 cars, Equinor said.
The preliminary capital and development expenditures of the project would be about five billion Norwegian kroner (600 million U.S. dollars), Equinor said.
The eight megawatt turbines will have a combined capacity of 88 megawatts, and are estimated to meet about 35 percent of the annual power demand of the five platforms at the Gullfaks and Snorre fields.
"Reducing the use of gas turbines by supplying platforms with power from floating offshore wind is a challenging and innovative project. It may also facilitate new industrial opportunities for Norway," said Pal Eitrheim, Equinor's executive vice president for New Energy Solutions. (1 U.S. dollar = 8.33 Norwegian kroner)
