Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has given the green light to Statkraft for the construction of its planned offshore wind test turbine on the island of Smøla.
The turbine will be used to test, qualify and gain operational experience that may be relevant in future offshore wind projects.
The turbine has a capacity of up to 8 megawatts (MW), producing an annual output of more than 20 gigawatt hours (GWh). This corresponds to the annual consumption of around 1,000 households.
The license to test the turbine was appealed to the Ministry, with an explanation that it could be a threat to several species of birds in the area. The Ministry stated that it had not found that the test turbine will impact the population of the species.
However, the Ministry imposed conditions that the test turbine should be included in the study and research work being done on an existing wind farm at Smøla.