Internationalization of Norwegian Offshore Wind Capabilities

Given the prospects for diversification of the Norwegian petro-maritime industry in direction offshore wind, we have analyzed the UK, German and French markets. The Global Production Network has worked as the main framework for the analysis. We have studied how the institutional framework for market development has shifted over time, and offered shifting possibilities for market entry. We have found global production networks are reconfigured over time, as the large energy companies (lead firms) have governed their value chain, but also how some regional actors have succeeded in hardening their local assets so they match the needs of the global production networks, whereas other regional actors have been less successful. Offhore wind is also analyzed from the perspective of sustainable transition, as we recognize how the technology is legitimized based on narratives about cutting costs; combating climate change; ensuring energy provision; local job creation. We have also mapped how the Norwegian involvement in offshore wind, periodically has draws on resources and assets in oil and gas supplier industry (here we consider the potential for floating offshore wind as particularly large), but periodically has competed with this industry on attention and investments. In other words, we have found that diversification from oil and gas is both an opportunity and a challenge. Diversification to offshore wind requires directional policies at various scales. Regarding the latter we recommend three complementary approaches. a) policies that support market access and incentives for diversification. These include support of marketing activities, domestic market creation policies that support technology verification, piloting and demonstration and strengthening support for the access to capital. b) The cyclical nature of the oil and gas industry sector has weakened the long-term commitment to diversification in some firms. If firms that primarily deliver to the oil and gas industry are to dedicate substantial resources to offshore wind on a long term basis, the authorities should create incentives for diversification that sufficiently compensate for - and/or reduce the pull towards oil and gas. c) Success in sustainable development in regions dependent on oil and gas, depend on the involvement of different parties (revive the tradition of tripartite cooperation in Norwegian working life) in policy making. To make sustainable transition feasible, it has to be balanced against the political frames that ensure further employment in these regions.

Vi har vært med å sette temaet "life after oil" på agendaen og formidlet våre funn, også utenfor akademia, gjennom populærformidling og i møter med industrien, men også på mange faglige konferanser internasjonalt og gjennom undervisning i flere emner og studieprogram ved NTNU. Vi mener å ha bidratt både med oppmerksomhet og kunnskap om havvind i mediebildet og til å sette bærekraftig omstilling på den politiske dagsorden. Vår rapport er referert til i stortingsdebatt 26.februar 2020 om næringsstrategi og havvind: https://sok.stortinget.no/?querytext=Asbj%C3%B8rn%20Karlsen&aid=160&sortby=&groups=BA1043%2BG336&clusterby=true&l=no&fbclid=IwAR13cBBZ9DeVrgNX-L_I_uoMGghEmFS2SJSPb29UIdUF6hg4Y0c2pKkNTdI

The proposed project will address the issue of developing competitive capabilities for the rapidly developing international market for offshore wind (OW) power. The project relates to the topic of 'innovation, change and restructuring' in the call for proposals, and will contribute with new knowledge on terms, factors and framework conditions that promote or hinder Norwegian technology (products/services) to OW markets in UK, Germany and France. In so doing, the project coalesces around processes of innovation and restructuring in Norwegian industries (notably petro-maritime), processes of 'strategic coupling' of Norwegian firms to the OW global production network, and finally around territorial development outcomes in terms of value creation. Drawing on our previous work on the diversification and cross-sectoral branching of O&G related industries into OW, the proposed project will contribute a novel evolutionary dimension to the current state-of-the-art work on Global Production Networks. InNOWiC will contribute to GPN theorizing by exploring the emergence of a relatively new global production network (OW), cross-sectoral dynamics and their influence on innovation, capability development and internationalization. Firms diversifying into OW from other sectors (such as O&G) may strategically switch between their core sector and the new market, but also recombine capabilities and reconfigure networks related to the two markets. In line with recent works on GPN we will also investigate the role of non-firm actors in ensuring strategic coupling by shaping and molding capabilities to fit the needs of lead firms in GPN. The project has 4 interlinked and complementary work packages: WP1 Mapping the OW global production network WP2 Comparing OW market contexts WP3 Norwegian firm capability development WP4 Project management The project team is inter-disciplinary (economic geography and business management studies) and involves Norwegian and British researchers.