Build it here, or buy it later?

Hywind Tampen proves that we can do it and analyses show that offshore wind could save Norwegian power consumers NOK 185 billion. Yet, other countries are scaling up while Norway hesitates.

At The Offshore Wind Conference – Science Meets Industry 2026 in Universitetsaulaen in Bergen on 29 September, the question wasn't if, but who.

Do we build offshore wind expertise ourselves, or buy it from others later?

Everything in the north sea matters to us

The choices made in this parliamentary term will decide whether Norway has enough power and a competitive industrial foothold in offshore wind into the 2030s and 2040s according to Jon Evang of Fornybar Norge. 

He opened the conference with a reminder that everything that happens in the North Sea is in our interest.

Norway has agreements there on defence, petroleum, fisheries, maritime borders, CO2, research and the environment. But offshore wind? Others are scaling up, while Norway procrastinates.

Hywind Tampen has been in operation for almost four years and shows that we can do it. It's the delays, the uncertainty around quality assurance and funding, and the unclear political vision that are throwing sand in the machinery.

We need both the power and the industrial opportunities, Evang said, and Norway has to take co-ownership of what happens in the North Sea.

So how much do the politicians agree?

We put that to the test in the political debate, where Kristin Guldbrandsen Frøysa (UiB) steered Marthe Hammer (SV), Linda Monsen Merkesdal (Ap), Svein Otto Jacobsen (FrP) and Sondre Olsen (NHO) through the questions.

The panel looked at how many times offshore wind is mentioned in the different parties' programmes, and what that might actually mean for the direction ahead and also touched upon nuclear vs. offshore wind. 

The north sea is a shared project

The North Seas Energy Cooperation (NSEC) is a political partnership between nine countries around the North Sea, Norway included, and the European Commission.

The goal is to coordinate the build-out of offshore wind, power grids and energy networks. 

According to Marte S. Skogen from UiB, this partnership matters to Norway because of:

• Market access: connecting Norwegian offshore wind to the European market
• Security: closer cooperation on protecting subsea infrastructure against sabotage and espionage
• Gas in the transition: a direct arena for making sure Norwegian natural gas remains a stable and accepted energy source for Europe during the green transition
• A political balancing act: Norway gets a seat at the table where common European energy rules are shaped, while the Norwegian government wants to keep national control over its own grid and avoid new interconnectors

Floating wind needs volume

Jan Fredrik Stadaas from WindEurope took us further out, to floating wind in Europe.

The technology has come a long way, but without volume, costs won't come down. His traffic light showed green for resources and grid connection, yellow for most of the rest, and red for the supply chain.

Suppliers invest only when they can see a long-term market, and one project isn't enough. His main message: technology, market, policy and supply chains have to develop together.

And while we discuss, the rest of the world builds. According to Rystad Energy, global operational offshore wind capacity passed 90 GW by the end of 2025.

Offshore wind gets cheaper when we build

Roger Pedersen from Offshore Norge underlined Stadaas' point, that costs come down when we build, learn and scale.

He pointed to a fresh report from DNV, which estimates that the cost of offshore wind in the North Sea could be cut by more than 20 per cent within 15 years through standardisation, industrialisation and predictable project pipelines.

In the most ambitious scenarios, it's up to 28 per cent by 2050.

He moreover presented an analysis by Volt Power Analytics and Boston Consulting Group (BCG).

The report shows that Norway's two planned offshore wind projects, Sørlige Nordsjø II and Utsira Nord, could save Norwegian power consumers NOK 185 billion between 2031 and 2045. That is far more than the proposed state support of NOK 58 billion.

What can we learn from lykkeland?

Cecilie Sælen from CCB Subsea drew parallels to 50 years of subsea.

From the very first production on the Norwegian shelf in 1971, using "marinised" Christmas trees on the first four discovery wells at Ekofisk, to where we are today: world leaders in subsea technology. (Lykkeland, for our international readers, is the Norwegian TV drama about the early oil years. Highly recommended.)

Her lessons to us were:

• No new industry is built without risk. The subsea adventure didn't start with ready-made answers. We tested, learned and developed the technology along the way.
• Risk gets smaller when we have projects to test, learn from and build on.
• We need a home market. Norwegian projects give suppliers the technology, experience and references that open doors abroad. Without a home market, it gets harder to develop the next generation of technology and bring more Norwegian companies in.
• We have to manage the risk together. Subsea didn't become a Norwegian success because the risk disappeared, but because we handled it together.

Then she asked the question: do we want to build the expertise here at home and position ourselves more strongly in the international market, or buy it from others later?

The industry is already at work

Archer Wind gave us the latest from the Culzean Floating Wind Pilot Project.  Assembly and integration took place at Wergeland Base in Gulen, and installation in the UK sector of the North Sea is planned for Q3 2026. What is special about this project is that the foundation is a modular, lightweight semi-submersible structure that is bolted together instead of welded. That means faster assembly, lower costs and a design that scales easily to different turbine sizes. It's the first time a floating offshore wind foundation has been built this way.

Goodtech told us about their latest project: delivering the technical infrastructure for World Wide Wind's floating demonstrator CRAFT. The concept combines a vertical-axis, counter-rotating turbine with a tilted floating structure, designed for large-scale offshore deployment.

Flex2Future showed what innovation can look like when you combine offshore wind, wave power and solar in one venture.

NIORD, a Norwegian Hull Club company, explained why blade failures are a growing cost driver for insurance claims in offshore wind. Cables still account for the biggest share of claims costs, but the blades are the ones to watch.

The Norwegian Centre of Expertise for Offshore Wind (HavvindNO) presented its wide range of useful reports and knowledge studies, which you can find at havvind.no. According to their mapping, carried out with Multiconsult, the Norwegian offshore wind industry turned over NOK 64 billion in 2025.

GCE Ocean Technology gave us a status update on our own SAMvind project, which aims to strengthen Vestland's combined competitiveness in offshore wind.
knowledge, free to use

Furthermore, we got the latest from research, with questions like: Can you plan data centres in wind farms? And how will the next generation of turbines be designed?

Arne Søiland from Europower summed up the day better than we could here, so thank you. 

Thank you also to all the speakers, the panel and everyone who spent a Tuesday talking about wind and thank you to our co-organisers UiB – Bergen Offshore Wind Centre and NORCE.

Wondering about anything at all? Get in touch with us.