The minister had previously shown interest in visiting the business park, and came in connection with his visit to Haugesund for the annual EnergiRike conference. Haugaland Business Park was also visited by the mayors of Tysvær, Haugesund and Karmøy, industry players Beyonder, Horizon Energy and Kårstø, as well as academia represented by HVL and UiB.
Tiril Fjeld, Managing Director of Haugaland Business Park, briefed the Minister on Haugalandet as a distinctly industry-intensive region with a high level of expertise in the process industry, and on how Haugaland Business Park, with its central location, large pre-regulated area and access to clean energy, is ideal for green industrial establishments. She also talked about how the business park's infrastructure has created circular opportunities through the use of cooling water from the fjord, possible heat and natural gas from Kårstø and more. She also highlighted CCS Haugalandet, a collaboration between the major industrial players on Haugalandet on the transportation and intermediate storage of CO2 between the locations.
Bringing the industry together
The minister emphasized how important this is, and that it is therefore necessary to largely co-locate the industry.
- "We need to bring the industry together, and we are very much in favor of industrial hubs. We need to stop wasting things and be able to reuse the energy," said Barth Eide.
Morten Sola, Project Director at Horizon Energy, told the Minister about their CO2 storage project and the reason for choosing Haugaland Business Park as the location.
- "Everything is in place here, and we can get started quickly. The park has a good port, plenty of electricity and a good customer base. We are in good dialogue with several players and are planning large volumes," said Sola, emphasizing that time is of the essence if the goals are to be achieved by 2030.
Espen Barth Eide has great faith in CO2 storage.
- "The demand for CSS storage will skyrocket in the near future. "The day we catch cheaper than we release, then this is going to be very big," said the minister.
Sustainable battery production
CEO of Beyonder, Svein Kvernstuen, explained how important it is in an electric future to think circularly in battery production.
- In Haugaland Næringspark, we found a location that facilitated this, with a ready-made infrastructure, a short distance to the markets both by sea and road, as well as being in the middle of an industrial metropolis with all the important clusters that are of interest to us. There is easy access to aluminum and other raw materials, we can exchange heating and cooling and we actually envision eventually facilitating other parts of our supply chain and building new clusters," said Kvernstuen.
The Minister spoke about Norway's membership of the European Battery Alliance.
- "We see that there is a great deal of interest in more sustainable batteries, and that many people will choose this over Chinese solutions, even if they are cheaper, so there will be room to compete," said Barth-Eide, who was curious about which markets Beyonder is targeting.
- "We are working towards stationary storage, which could replace diesel generators, and in the UK we are investing in the electrification of forklifts and dump trucks," said the Beyonder CEO.
Collaboration on circular solutions
The gas terminal at Kårstø is next door to Haugaland Business Park, and Equinor's site manager Olav Bådsvik said that they send out an amount of energy equivalent to almost 30,000 wind turbines every day. "Annually, we help to replace CO2 emissions in Poland by 70 million tons, one and a half times Norway's annual consumption.
- "We must manage to find transitions to blue and green, and we want cooperation, and have had good conversations with Beyonder, among others. We have to be ambitious and need more skilled workers - and help from politicians to get started," emphasized Bådsvik.
The mayors of three of the owner municipalities, Tysvær, Haugesund and Karmøy, also highlighted to the minister how good inter-municipal cooperation has been a prerequisite for the establishment and development of the business park, and that they will be focusing on good cooperation with industry players and national authorities in the future.
