Norway sees ‘huge’ interest in offshore wind, energy minister says

OSLO, June 24 (Reuters) – Norway is seeing big interest from energy firms in developing offshore wind resources in its waters, Minister of Petroleum and Energy Tina Bru told Reuters on Thursday.

“The interest is huge and I’m really looking forward to the developments,” she said, speaking in an interview at the Reuters Events: Global Energy Transition conference.

The Nordic country, best known for its vast oil and gas industry, has already announced plans to award offshore acreage in two locations to companies seeking to set up giant wind turbines.

The first rounds of awards could be concluded next year. Asked if more acreage could be made available in 2023, Bru said “probably, yes”.

“We’ve given an assignment to the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate (NVE) to start the process of finding and proposing new areas for development. We think that’s probably going to take around two years,” she said.