Opening of the Osmotic Power Plant

• Her Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen!

• In September I took part in the opening of the world’s first full scale floating wind turbine ever. Today I am very pleased to be here and for the opening of the world’s first full scale prototype of an osmotic power plant. I am proud that Statkraft and other Norwegian companies are on the frontier edge of the development of renewable energy technology offshore.

• Let me put the importance of this project into a larger frame.

• The Copenhagen-Climate Change Conference is now less than a few weeks ahead of us. The Norwegian Government has always aimed at an international legally binding agreement that will limit global warming to two degrees, compared to preindustrial levels.

• We hope this summit can contribute to an agreement on an ambitious climate regime that includes specific emissions commitments on the part of the major emitters.

• A week ago, I had the opportunity to take part in the presentation of IEA “world energy Outlook 2009”. According to the IEA, primary energy demand will increase by 40 per cent from 2007 to 2030.

• On current trends, the average global temperature will increase by as much as 6 degrees in the long term.

• More people need more energy

The world cannot handle too much carbon dioxide

We therefore need a major decarbonisation of the world energy sources and an energy revolution.

• How can we tackle these challenges?

1) It must be more expensive to emit carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
2) We need huge investments in renewable energy production.
3) We need research, development and testing of alternative energy to make renewables more competitive. The costs must come down!

• I want Norway to have a leading role in this.

Renewable energy – policy

We need to develop more of our mature technology like hydro power and onshore wind power.

and we have to develop more immature technology, which this Osmotic power plant is an example of. Tomorrow salt will a part of the solution. The potential is huge. (12 TWh in Norway and 1600-1700 TWh worldwide)

• Norway is in a fortunate situation when it comes to renewable energy. We are the world’s 6th largest producer of hydropower and 60 per cent of the Norwegian total energy consumption is already based on renewable energy. The EU-27 average is around 9 percent.

• The Norwegian Government has an ambitious policy in order to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency.

• The funding of Enova the Norwegian public agency for renewable energy and energy efficiency will next year be 1,8 billion Norwegian kroner, and 3 times higher than in 2006, when the government came into power.

• We have established a fund for renewable energy and energy efficiency that will be 25 billion kroner in 2010.(3 billion Euro)

• The Government has set out ambitious goals for Carbon Capture and Storage. This year and next year we will invest more than one billion dollar in Carbon Capture and Storage projects.

• We are working for a common electricity certificate system with Sweden. The ambition is to establish a common electricity certificate system from 1st January 2012. Our ambitions are to take the equally ambitious commitment as Sweden, from the commencement of the common certificate system.

The osmotic project

• Statkraft is the largest renewable energy company in Europe, with a long history for finding innovative solutions for developing renewable energy all from hydro to wind and solar energy.

• This unique project we see here today is a result of a high commitment to research and development and cooperation with R&D organisations from many countries.

• Statkraft has invested more than 100 million kroner towards development of osmotic power.

Funding of the project – Research council of Norway and Enova

• This osmotic power project shows also how the government instruments are working together for the development of energy technologies. The Research Council of Norway has funded the project in different stages, with a total funding of about 14 million kroner. In addition to this the project was awarded about 7 million kroner from the public agency Enova in 2007.

• This project will give unique insights into how to further develop the osmotic technology, and has therefore received great international interest.

Conclusion

• In our Government platform we have a vision that Statkraft should be a renewable engine. In real terms this first full scale prototype of an osmotic power plant contributes to achieve this vision of Statkraft.

• Congratulation and thank you