Norway tackles the grid bottleneck in European offshore wind power
Page date: published 10 April 2024; updated 30 September 2026; 4 min read (as rendered).
The article frames transmission capacity as a constraint on European offshore-wind expansion and cites EU targets of at least 60 GW offshore wind by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050. It describes the EU Grid Action Plan and argues for cross-border grid planning, anticipatory investment and better management of connection queues.
Norway’s Ocean Grid Project is described as a 17-partner effort, with Equinor coordinating and five subprojects covering offshore grid development, wet-design cables, subsea substations, a floating HVDC platform and open research. Named leads include Hafslund, Nexans, Aker Solutions, Aibel and SINTEF. These descriptions and project goals are attributed to the page.
Commercial examples include Nexans Norway’s high-voltage submarine cables and cable-laying vessels, including Nexans Aurora, built by Ulstein and designed by Skipsteknisk. The article says Ulstein had signed a contract for an upgraded cable-laying ship. Seaway7 is described as contracted to install about 200 km of 66 kV inter-array cable (100 cables) for the Polish MFW Bałtyk II and III projects, with work planned to begin in 2026. Dates and delivery projections are historical plans from the article and may have changed.
Related links: Energy; Offshore wind.