Western Norway gains new green energy test centre

The Sustainable Energy Norwegian Catapult Centre was launched in December 2018, and has already been described as “worth its weight in gold” by one customer.

The centre will focus on driving clean energy projects within Norway’s maritime industries. It will be based at Stord, and will oversee a range of testing facilities across western Norway.

Norwegian industrial companies will be able to test different types of sustainable energy systems, such as battery and hydrogen fuel cells.

Helping small companies

The Sustainable Energy centre has been established in record time, and took on its first customer in December. IKM Technology performed subsea testing of an electric engine in The Switch’s testing center at Stord.

“Having access to such facilities in Norway is worth its weight in gold for small companies like us, who do not have the funds to build up similar facilities themselves,” says Jostein Reinsnos, managing director of IKM Technology.

“We save both a lot of time and money when we are able to test the product properly before we take it out in the field.”
 

The centre is owned by the Norwegian Maritime Energy Complex, UNITECH, Haugaland Kraft, NCE Maritime CleanTech and Bergen Technology Transfer (BTO).

“By giving companies access to world-class test facilities, the center helps industry to get new products and solutions faster in to the market,” says Hege Økland, the chief executive officer of NCE Maritime CleanTech.

“The center plays an important role in strengthening Norwegian industry and accelerating the technology development we need to reach our climate goals.”

Wide range of services

Facilities that are available in the new catapult include The Switch’s test center for marine power electronics at Stord, UNITECH’s technology center at Rubbestadneset, Haugaland Kraft’s micronet on Utsira, ships from several shipping companies, and test facilities at sea at the MetCenter.

Sustainable Energy also offers expertise and facilities from a number of research institutions such as University of Bergen, Institute for Energy Technology, Norwegian School of Economics / Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration and NORCE.

In addition, NCE Maritime CleanTech is a vital partner to the new venture together with the Norwegian Marine Energy Complex business network.

One of two catapult centres in Hordaland

Sustainable Energy is one of two catapult centres that the public funding agency Siva has established in Hordaland.

The second is the Ocean Innovation Norwegian Catapult Center (OINC), a national test, simulation and visualisation centre. OINC helps companies to develop prototypes and verify new solutions for the ocean industries.

OINC is a consortium consisting of GCE Subsea, NCE Seafood Innovation Cluster, Prototech, Industrial Laboratory (ILAB), University of Bergen, DNV GL, Marineholmen Research Park and Bergen Technology Transfer.
 

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