Ramboll continues consultancy support to wind project in Norway

26 June 2017 Consultancy.uk

Norway's Fosen Vind project will add around 1 GW of wind capacity to its energy grid, sufficient to power around 170,000 households. The project, which is joint owned by three energy companies, continues to be supported by consultancy firm Ramboll.

The levelled cost of electricity from a range of renewable sources is becoming increasingly less expensive. Wind projects, both onshore and off shore have begun to pick up more and more investor interests as the global economy begins to accelerate its shift towards more sustainable forms of energy generation.

Europe is no stranger to on and offshore wind farms, with a host of them planned, in development of completed across the continent, including the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands. Norway too is investing in the technology, with its Fosen Vind project – the largest onshore wind projects in Europe. The project as a whole will generate 1 GW in electricity and will receive investment in the range of €2.1 billion, with sufficient generation capacity to power 170,000 households.

Ramboll provies range of consultancy services to Storheia Wind Farm

The Storheia Wind Farm north of Trondheim, Norway, is part of the wider Fosen Vind project. Its final capacity will be around 290 MW, enough to support the energy demand of 50,000 Norwegian household per year.

The financing for the Fosen Vind DA project stems from Statkraft (52.1%), TrønderEnergi (7.9%) and Nordic Wind Power DA (40%). The latter is a consortium of European players, including Credit Suisse Energy Infrastructure Partners and Swiss power company BKW.

The construction, based on a design and build contract, includes 62 kilometres of roads in a very complex terrain, 80 hard stands and concrete foundations, hundreds of kilometres of electric cables, as well as a service building and sub-station. Rough climate conditions through large parts of the year represent an added challenge.

Ramboll was commissioned by Nordic Wind Power DA to support the project during the establishment phase as well as the optimisation phase that led to the investment decision. Recently the consultancy firm has worked on the project related to issues pertaining to power, road and geo-technical engineering, landscape and environment.

Remarking on the project so far, with the on-site work to begin soon, the first turbine installation is set for 2019, and despite difficult conditions on the huge project, Per Halvor Bekkelund, Ramboll’s Project Manager remained optimistic, remarking, “we have been working with Veidekke since July 2016 on the tender design, so we are well prepared."