The UK and Norway launched on 16 December a new ‘green’ industrial partnership to combine their capabilities in clean energy, and drive economic growth. Politically. it will be part of the UK prime minister’s recently announced ‘Plan for Change’. The partnership expects to stimulate enhanced co-operation across a range of sectors, including future clean energy innovations and the development of cross-border carbon capture opportunities under the North Sea.
Norway is one of the UK’s most important and longstanding energy partners, being the single biggest supplier of natural gas after the UK Continental Shelf, and the new agreement – which the two countries aim to sign in spring 2025 – will support the UK’s ambition to secure more ‘home-grown’ energy, and keep it on track to become a leader in clean energy by 2030.
The prime minister will visit a cross-border carbon transport and storage facility in Norway to see how the benefits of such projects can benefit the UK in reigniting industrial heartlands and fuel industrial growth.
The UK government has recently signed the first carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) contracts in the UK. BP, and Norwegian company Equinor are playing a major role in the first projects, called the Northern Endurance Partnership and Net Zero Teesside.
The announcement comes at the same time as Green Volt awards front-end engineering and design contracts to progress a new project, a floating offshore windfarm based off the Northeast coast of Scotland. It is the first major commercial floating wind development in Europe, and a joint venture between Norwegian Vårgrønn and UK firm Flotation Energy.
Alongside the new Green Industrial Partnership, the two countries have committed to initiate work to identify gaps and challenges to the development of their common North Sea as a hub for carbon storage and to develop a bilateral agreement or arrangement on cross-border transport of CO2 under the London Protocol. It also comes as Norway’s Statkraft broke ground on the Swansea Greener Grid Park in Wales, which will use low carbon technology to improve grid stability and reduce the need for fossil fuel power plants. The £70 million investment is one of a pipeline of similar grid stability schemes to be developed in the UK, and Statkraft has already delivered two. The company has to date invested £1.4 billion in renewable energy infrastructure in the UK.
