Massive offshore wind farm announced for Sweden

This is one of 10 offshore wind farm projects that are currently ‘under development’ (ie construction has not yet begun, nor approval necessarily granted) by OX2 off the coasts of Sweden and Finland.

The total number of turbines that could be installed across all of them is around 1,300, with approximately 12GW of power expected to be generated.

In the Aurora farm, each turbine has a capacity of 15MW, which will generate a total of 5.5GW across all 370.

Aurora is 22 kilometres south of the island of Gotland and 30km east of Öland in the Baltic Sea, and if granted approval, construction could begin in 2028.

The turbines here could also be fitted with sensors, says OX2, to help with surveillance and control in the area, which ‘is of importance to the Swedish Armed Forces’.

“Export cables from the farm are planned to go to the mainland but also directly to Gotland,” said Emelie Zakrisson, head of Development of Offshore Wind in Sweden for OX2. “The large-scale production from Aurora would facilitate for more local electricity production to be developed as well as hydrogen production to help decarbonize industry and heavy transports.”

As a first step towards winning approval, the scheme has been granted a Natura 2000 permit by the County Administrative Board. This means that it does not believe the wind farm will harm ‘species worthy of protection’.

It will then recommend the project to the government to consider approvals.