Giant turbines the size of jumbo jets bobbing on the North Sea may soon become as common off Norway as oil and gas platforms.
At least that is the ambition of Norwegian authorities and industry, eager to splash some green on their oily image and use their offshore expertise to corner a potentially lucrative new market - floating wind farms in deep sea waters.
Norway's government is contemplating licensing "blocks" for offshore wind generation, and Norwegian oil company StatoilHydro aims to start work next year on a floating turbine project near the site of the first North Sea oil discovery 40 years ago.
"We are the best place in Norway if you love wind," mayor Jarle Nilsen said of Utsira, a North Sea island of just six square kilometres and home to 210 people who already get most of their power from two onshore turbines.
"We had wind every day except one last year," he told Reuters, thrilled by the prospect of two experimental offshore wind projects anchoring in nearby waters.
With Europe's second-longest coastline after Greece, Norway is hard hit by winds blowing off the Atlantic and, along with Britain, well placed for wind energy projects.
Offshore turbines can be twice as powerful as land-based units due to stronger, more sustained winds at sea.
Out of sight from the coast, such wind farms could use modified, more efficient turbines because limiting noise, a key concern for land-based wind farms, is not as critical offshore.
The technology is not tested and costly offshore repairs could quickly drive up costs, analysts say. The price of wind electricity produced will also probably stay above that of conventional fossil fuel-based power for years to come, meaning that state subsidies play a major role.
"We have been very clear in saying that there are exciting prospects in offshore wind and indeed floating wind," said Deputy Energy and Petroleum Minister Liv Monica Stubholt.
"But we also acknowledge that experts advise us to 'hurry slowly' because there are still considerable technological hurdles that need to be hopped."
Windpower is growing and set to top 100 gigawatts in installed global capacity in 2008 in a push for alternatives to coal- or gas-powered plants, which emit heat-trapping gasses. Still, wind accounts for only one per cent of the global power mix. About 98 per cent of that capacity is at land-based turbines but new technology and the benefits of pushing windfarms away from populated areas are strengthening the offshore market - presently led by Britain and Denmark.
The Brussels-based Global Wind Energy Council has forecast that the world's wind market will reach 240 GW by 2012, with a growing share coming from offshore.
Britain has an ambitious goal for 35 GW in installed offshore wind capacity by 2020.
The floating turbine concept allows wind farms to wade further out to sea. Anchored to the seabed, they can be built in deeper waters where the sea floor would be too soft for standing turbines.
The "Hywind" project, which includes German Siemens' wind power unit, will test the technology and look for ways to cut operating and maintenance costs for the giant turbines to be located in water depths of up to 700 metres.