Nordic ports project has mobilized to meet offshore wind targets

With the support of Nordic Innovation, a large international consortium has facilitated cooperation and development of Nordic ports in Denmark, Sweden and Norway and Finland.

The Nordic Ports Project aimed to make Nordic ports ready for the expanding offshore wind industry. Goals were to build a stronger green infrastructure and new value chains across developers, manufacturers, and subcontractors for offshore wind.

-This collaboration has been vital for the ports involved in identifying what their challenges are and what is needed to solve them, says Astrid Green, representing Norwegian Offshore Wind in the project.

In addition to meetings, the projects partners have visited different ports in the three countries. They have shared experience and innovative infrastructure solutions, both digital and physical, that can help shape future port development. 

-Most importantly, we have mapped capacity of the ports in the three countries. We can safely say that the Nordic region will be key to solve capacity issues in the European offshore wind investment, says Green. 

During the project period, Norwegian Offshore Wind also commissioned a report on the offshore wind potential of Norwegian assembly sites and bases. Partners were Invest in Norway and Eksfin, and Menon Economics did the report. 

-Both the analysis we have made and the experience from the Nordic ports projects point to a pressing need to invest more in ports and infrastructure, if we are going to achieve our offshore wind targets, says Green. 

Energy Cluster Denmark represented the Danish ports in the project, and the Swedish sites were represented by RISE Institute Sweden.

-This project represents one of the excellent examples where we in the Nordics worked together to deliver innovative solutions based on our rich industrial tradition in maritime, wind, offshore energy and steel industries, says Nermina Saracevic, and adds:

-On the Swedish side we worked to optimize supply chain concept, including first-hand mapping and establishment of local supply chain in Trelleborg, Skåne, for Swedish Kriegers Flak wind farm.

Norwegian Offshore Wind established a working group for ports and infrastructure in 2022, led by Turid Storhaug from Windport in Mandal. They work to drive forward innovation in the port sector and to foster collaboration between the ports.