Enova, the Norwegian state enterprise that is owned by the Ministry of Climate and Environment, has gone ahead and launched a call for applications when it comes to a competition round so as to award funding to the small-scale floating wind projects.
Projects that can apply are the ones looking to test as well as demonstrate new solutions that can very well lower the cost of floating offshore wind energy, having a deadline for applications that is set for 12 February 2026.
In this round, the third one, which Enova launched in terms of floating wind, projects with one to five wind turbines can go ahead and participate in order to secure almost NOK 2 billion, which is almost EUR 168 million when it comes to state support.
Arvid Nesse, the industry organization Norwegian Offshore Wind’s Norway CEO, said that when they go on to look at the criteria, it is indeed quite clear that Enova is looking out for applicants who are indeed serious in terms of offshore wind, have quite solid financing behind them, and also intend to make use of small-scale floating wind projects as stepping stones in order to learn and cut costs before going ahead with something much larger. Either way, this is indeed going to be excellent news and also quite a significant opportunity when it comes to the offshore wind industry.
The programme which is called Competition for Support for Small-Scale Commercial Floating Offshore Wind Projects, is going to be run for several rounds leading up to 2030 and has already gone on to award funding for a couple of projects.
Notably, in 2024, Enova went on to grant NOK 2 billion to the GoliatVIND floating offshore wind project, which has been developed by Source Galileo, Odfjell Oceanwind, and Kansai Electric Power Company. The 75 MW demonstration project is planned so as to feature Deepsea Star foundations of the Odfjell Oceanwind and also five 15 MW wind turbines. The floating wind farm is going to be connected to the Goliat oil platform in the Barents Sea, making use of the existing power cable to shore, and is anticipated to be put into operation in 2027.
At the start of 2025, Wind Catching Demo, which is a subsidiary of Wind Catching Systems, got a NOK 1.2 billion, which is around EUR 100 million, grant from Enova so as to roll out a commercial demonstrator unit when it came to its multi-turbine floating wind platform.
The demo project has an overall installed capacity of 40 MW and goes on to involve one Windcatcher having 40 turbines of a 1 MW output. The project is all set to be completed in 2029.
In addition to this, the Norwegian government has also awarded two project sites recently under the first floating wind tender of the country.
A joint venture between Deep Wind Offshore and EDF Renewables, Harald Hårfagre, and a consortium of Equinor and Vårgrønn were the only developers to go ahead and submit applications in the tender and have secured sites for 500 MW floating wind farms.