Norway has big wind resources that can be utilized for production of electricity. The official target for Norway is a production of 3 TWh annually by 2010. Thanks to good wind conditions this can be achieved by installation of about 1000 MW of wind power capacity. The potential for wind power in Norway is much bigger; an annual production of 20 TWh by 2020 is a viable goal assuming development both on land and offshore. The potential for development of Norwegian industry is also significant, both as sub-suppliers and as wind turbine manufacturers.

SINTEF cooperate with Institute for Energy Technology (IFE) and Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) on wind power R&D, constituting a strong alliance for meeting the challenges of large scale integration of wind power at tough Nordic conditions on land and offshore. The R&D on Wind Energy is presented in a this folder.

The EU 2020 target implies a massive installation of offshore wind. A ballpark estimate is investments of € 125 billions for installation of 50 GW offshore wind in European seas. The development is ongoing, but in an early stage. Only about 1 GW of offshore wind has so far (2007) been installed in Europe, and all relatively close to shore using what can be called on-shore wind technology.

The potential for wind farms at deeper water is huge provided that costs can be reduced to a competitive level. This requires development of offshore technology, and within this field Norwegian industry and research units are in the forefront. Examples are jacket design by Owec Tower for the Beatrice wind farm, manufacturing of tripods by Aker Solutions, and the floating concepts HyWind, SWAY and WindSea. Considerable research efforts are needed to support this development, and in this the research partners SINTEF, NTNU and IFE are in the international forefront on critical issues, e.g. offshore technology and grid integration.