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Baltic Eagle Complete: Germany Reaches 2024 Expansion Target For Offshore Wind Energy Ahead of Schedule

Muenster, Germany - The expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany is fully on schedule for 2024. In addition to the Gode Wind 3 offshore wind farm (253 MW), the commissioning of the Baltic Eagle wind farm (476 MW) is planned for the current year. According to Iberdrola, all 50 wind turbines of the Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm have now been installed.

In Germany, two further offshore wind farms with a capacity of 729 MW will go into operation in 2024. Together with the planned expansion in 2025, new offshore power plant capacity totaling around 2,500 MW will be available from 2026. Domestic electricity production will therefore increase by 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity per year in record time from 2026 onwards due to the expansion of offshore wind power capacity in 2024 and 2025 alone.

Baltic Eagle: Iberdrola and Masdar complete installation of offshore wind turbines

The Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea is a joint venture between the Spanish energy supplier Iberdrola and Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) from the United Arab Emirates. Just in time for winter, Iberdrola announces that all 50 Vestas wind turbines, each with a capacity of 9.53 MW, of the Baltic Eagle wind farm with a total capacity of 476 MW have been installed in the German Baltic Sea.

“The completion of the turbine installation at the Baltic Eagle wind farm is an important milestone in this record year for Iberdrola's offshore wind activities. With this project, Iberdrola is on track to have almost 5,000 MW of offshore capacity worldwide by the end of 2026,” said Ignacio Galán , Executive Chairman of Iberdrola.

Baltic Eagle is part of the Baltic Hub - Strategic partnership between Iberdrola and Masdar

Baltic Eagle (476 MW) is the second of Iberdrola's three major wind farm projects in Germany, alongside Wikinger (350 MW, in operation) and Windanker (315 MW, in planning). Together, these offshore wind farms form Iberdrola's Baltic Hub. By 2026, Iberdrola's Baltic Hub will have a total capacity of more than 1.1 GW (1,100 MW) and trigger investments of around EUR 3.7 billion.

Iberdrola and Masdar have entered into a strategic partnership and signed a partnership to jointly invest in Baltic Eagle in July 2023. At COP28 (2023 in Dubai), the two companies announced an agreement worth €15 billion to explore the joint development of offshore wind farms and green hydrogen projects in key markets such as Germany, the UK and the US.

Masdar from the United Arab Emirates is aiming for 100 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 and plans to triple Masdar's global renewable energy capacity by the end of this decade.

The state of offshore wind energy in Germany - expansion of 2,500 MW in the next two years

Offshore wind farms with a capacity of 8,500 MW were in operation in Germany at the end of 2023. In 2024, two new offshore wind farms with a capacity of 729 MW (Baltic Eagle and Gode Wind 3) are scheduled to start producing electricity. The rapid expansion will also continue next year in 2025. With He Dreiht (900 MW) from EnBW and Borkum Riffgrund (913 MW), two further offshore wind farms with a capacity of 1,813 MW will be added.

Within just two years, around 2,500 MW of additional offshore wind power capacity will be available in Germany. With around 4,000 full-load utilization hours, the expected additional electricity production from 2026 will be around 10 billion kWh of domestic energy.



Source: IWR Online, 17 Oct 2024