Industrial Company, Norwegian Church Fund Create Solar Power Company

Norsk Hydro’s (NHY.OL) renewable energy unit Hydro Rein and the state-owned Norwegian Church Endowment (OVF) fund are partnering to establish a new solar power company, Geisli Energi, Hydro Rein said on Tuesday.

Hydro Rein and landowner OVF aim to develop seven solar projects with a total capacity of 655 megawatts (MW) at selected properties in Norway. Hydro Rein will be responsible for project development and construction.

Annual production at the plants, which will vary in size from 20 MW to 100 MW, is estimated to be 330 GWh, with a potential for an additional 400 GWh per year.

The new company, in which Hydro Rein will hold 49.9% and OVF 50.1%, will place the plants adjacent to suitable industrial sites, primarily in southern Norway, Tor-Ove Horstad, head of Hydro Rein in the country said.

“These will be solar parks, and they will be ground-mounted,” Horstad said.

Hydro Rein’s renewable energy portfolio consists of 26 projects under development in the Nordics and Brazil. It aims to have 3 GW in construction or operation by 2026.

“We are already building solar (plants) in Brazil and have taken stakes in solar projects in Denmark and Sweden, and we now see it’s possible to do this at a certain scale in Norway,” Horstad added.

The company said last month it had decided to abandon a consortium with Equinor (EQNR.OL) and RWE (RWEG.DE) that aims to develop an offshore windfarm in the Soerlige Nordsjoe II area in the North Sea, citing a need to prioritise other projects.

“This was a project-specific decision, and does not mean that we will not invest in offshore wind development, in Norway or other places,” he said.

Norway aims to reach 8 terawatt hours (TWh) of annual solar power production in 2030, equivalent to some 5% of the country’s average annual output of around 155 TWh.