Eirik Finserås
Visting Stay: January 2024 – February 2024
PhD Research: Eiriks research is related to a comparative assessment of national licensing procedures for offshore wind in the North Sea Basin. Currently entitled `A Comparative Legal Analysis of North Sea Offshore Wind Licensing Procedures`, the objective of the thesis is to critically assess whether different licensing procedures are functionally like. The comparative assessment analyses project-specific licensing procedures in Norway, Denmark and England and it is due for submission in June 2024. Besides national licensing procedures, I have also published an interdisciplinary article which assesses the governance of transboundary wake effects between offshore wind farms under the purview of international law. 
NSELP Lecture: Eirik will hold a lecture as a part of the NSELP LLM Programme. The lecture will draw on different themes related to licensing of offshore wind. In the first, I will describe some overarching governance challenges pertaining to offshore wind development. Licensing frameworks embody both complementary and conflicting functions, and there are varying ways to which procedures can be developer-driven or influenced by State intervention/participation. The second part of the lecture will describe how exclusive rights to develop offshore wind is determined in Norway, Denmark and England. These are lengthy processes which embody a series of sequential stages of strategic planning and project-specific applications. The third and final part of the lecture will describe how the revised Renewable Energy Directive will fundamentally change how licensing of offshore wind is conducted by Member States in the EU.