Norwegian maritime and offshore energy forces teamed up in January to create Deep Wind Offshore, a new name in offshore wind.
Deep Wind Offshore, founded by the Norwegian shipping company Knutsen OAS and one of Norway’s larger utilities Haugaland Kraft/SKL (Sunnhordland Kraftlag), plans to develop deepwater offshore wind projects in Norway and internationally.
To help with this, the company appointed experienced offshore wind names - Knut Vassbotn, who joined from Aker Offshore Wind, having previously spent years in various roles with Aker Solutions as CEO, and Hans Petter Øvrevik as its Chief Commercial Officer (CCO).
Øvrevik has more than 16 years of experience in the offshore industry, including roles in Aker Solutions and Aker Offshore Wind, most recently heading Aker Offshore Wind's U.S. projects.
It is Øvrevik who recently spoke to Offshore Engineer TV's Greg Trauthwein, to share more info on the company, its plans, and how it plans to compete with the established offshore wind majors. According to Øvrevik, it's all about the size of the pie, and in the market the company is targeting - so, deepwater offshore wind - the pie is huge.
Size of the pie
" ...There's a lot of big players out there, but I mean the way we view it, it's all about the size of the pie. And basically, today, if you look particular into floating and deepwater wind, there's only a dozen of units installed, around 100 megawatts maybe of floating wind," he says.
Per Øvrevik, the projection is that the deepwater wind market, is going to grow from about 100 megawatts today to about 18,000 megawatts 10 years from now.
"So basically the pie is going to grow substantially, and we think that to make this happen, you will need a combination of both existing players and also new progressive smaller players that think in a different way. So we think there's room for both.
"And I think one thing that stands out in our setup is that we have the combination of the maritime and offshore experience from Knutsen and we have also the utility and the deep experience in the power systems and the grid design that we have with Haugaland Kraft as well. So we think that combination is strong and we think it'll be a differentiator," he said.
Shuttle tankers for wind ops?
Knutsen recently said there could be an opportunity for its shuttle tankers in the offshore wind space, saying the tankers "could be well suited to meet the expected increased need for transportation vessels to offshore wind."
Given that shuttle tankers are normally used in offshore oil and gas operations, Trauthwein asked Øvrevik to elaborate on this.
Øvrevik said:"...One of the reasons why Knutsen found interest in talking with us initially was also around the potential that they were looking to repurpose some of their ships. So I think it's a relevant opportunity for many players."
He said that Knutsen has some vessels that are coming off of charter and the company is looking to maintain the good utilization of them, by converting from shipping and having tanks for oil or other hydrocarbons, to develop ships can transport various components for offshore wind.
Watch the full interview above to learn about the company's plans, regions where it plans to bid for offshore wind opportunities, investment plans, and more.