Norway's impressive onshore wind boom is at risk of grinding to a halt due to a suspension in new licensing applications, the country's wind association Norwea told S&P Global Platts March 12.
The country had a stellar 2020, adding 1.53 GW of wind capacity to take its total to 3.98 GW. Output grew 80% to 9.9 TWh, accounting for 6% of the country's total power production as capacity factors rose to 37.4%, Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate NVE said March 9.
"For 2021 we are looking at [additions of] 1,200 MW from 12 projects, given travel restrictions do not shift the timeline," Norwea's policy advisor, Daniel Willoch, said. "Average turbine size for the 12 projects is 4.35 MW, compared to 4.18 MW for last year."
Once the current pipeline of approved projects is built out, however, there was a risk of a hiatus in development.
"NVE is currently not taking in new licensing applications for consideration," Willoch said.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy suspended licensing last year until Parliament has deliberated on its white paper on wind energy.
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Parliament's review was completed in early December, with broad agreement on the need for more power for electrification and industry, but with new requirements on wind farm development, including a five-year deadline from final approval to commissioning, discontinuation of the electricity certificate scheme and consideration of increased taxation on wind power.
Two things are still pending from the parliamentary resolution, Willoch said.
The first is incorporation of wind farm planning into the Planning and Building Act (Plan- og bygningsloven), under which municipalities have jurisdiction.
"The government has said energy infrastructure remains a national responsibility, so this is not a transferal of power, but a system for increased formal inclusion of municipalities needs to be designed nonetheless," he said.
The other issue is tax. "Parliament in effect asked for increased local taxation," Willoch said. That did not definitively mean the overall tax burden on wind would increase, but that more of the tax raised would be returned to the communities where wind farms were located, he said.
Other than that, the Parliament's resolution limits the scope for changes in projects post-licensing, and moves the date for financial guarantees for decommissioning forward. All prudent, Willoch said, as part of a revision after some years of high wind power growth.
"What is dramatic is that all of this is taking time, and as of now we have, in principle, no new power plants to build," he said.
With electrification of the economy picking up and daily newsflow on plans for hydrogen facilities and battery factories, "we either get going with power plant development quite soon, or end up with a power deficit," he said.
