The Offshore Wind Conference Science Meets Industry
November 10th Bergen Offshore Wind Centre (BOW), GCE Ocean Technology and NORCE arranged the offshore wind conference Science Meets Industry in the University Aula at University of Bergen. This was an opportunity to share experiences and knowledge across the industry and academia.
Main content
Professor Finn Gunnar Nielsen from BOW welcomed "Friends of the wind", followed by Jan Fredrik Stadaas from Equinor who addressed offshore wind's past, present and future. Stadaas highlighted that it takes time to develop something new, that there is no "quick fix" in terms of getting results, and that one cannot do it alone.聽
The need for collaboration, is perhaps a reason why聽several companies have formed聽consortiums within offshore wind development, and聽BKK's Niklas Forsberg termed BKK's聽collaboration with Lyse and Shell a "great love affair". In addition to Forsberg, representatives from the consortiums聽Norseman Wind, Deepwind and V氓rgr酶nn discussed their ambitions and challenges in terms of development of offshore wind in S酶rlige Nordsj酶 II and Utsira Nord.聽
Technological innovations and research within the field was also discussed. Morten Bjerkholt from Eelume introduced the audience to swimming robots, while Camilla S忙tre adressed SFI Smart Ocean's sensor- and communication system. Joachim Reuder from BOW explained the usage of drones in wind energy research, while BOW's PhD-candidate Ida Marie Solbrekke's research is on optimal sites for wind farms.聽
DOF Subsea, NORCE and Kongstein shared experiences from the industry, where they among other things,聽showed pictures and illustrations that gave descriptive聽examples of the dimensions in terms of turbine size.
Finally, there was a panel discussion聽that聽adressed聽the legal challenges within offshore wind. There was a broad agreement in the panel about the聽necessity of a legal framework and the need for it to be in place soon.
Offshore Wind will be the most important electricity provider in Europe by 2040
Finn Gunnar Nielsen
