Energy transition briefs

OMV and Austria Wirtschaftsservice have signed a funding agreement of up to $147 million for one of Europe’s largest green hydrogen plants in Bruck an der Leitha (Lower Austria). The 140 MW project will have an annual capacity of 23,000 tonnes of green hydrogen from the end of 2027. The plant will save 150,000 tons of carbon emissions a year from the Schwechat refinery.

Norway has allocated two projects for floating offshore wind in Utsira Nord to a consortium of Equinor and Vårgrønn; and Harald Hårfagre AS. The companies may now apply for licences and may also be entitled to state aid. Maximum level of support is $3.5 billion.

TGS has deployed its first proprietary offshore wind and metocean measurement project in Australia. The one-year deployment in the Gippsland region of Victoria will record wind, wave, current and environmental parameters in water depths of about 60 m. The dataset will inform turbine selection, layout optimisation, foundation design, environmental assessments and grid connection planning. Data will be gathered using an EOLOS floating LiDAR buoy equipped with integrated ocean and environmental sensors. Measurements will be delivered daily through Wind AXIOM, the TGS site evaluation and analytics platform.

Fugro has extended its agreement with PTSC to provided geophysical, geotechnical and metocean data services in Vietnam. Fugro will provide marine site characterisation services to support Vietnam’s the growing offshore wind sector as well as the oil and gas sector. Vietnam has set ambitious offshore wind targets of approximately 6 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030, and 70 to 91.5 GW by 2050.

The UK has secured a record 8.4GW of offshore wind capacity in its latest auction for new clean power projects (Allocation Round 7). A record eight offshore wind farm projects surpass the previous record of six in the 2019 auction.