| Project Detail |
Iberdrola group build its second major offshore wind project in the Baltic: Baltic Eagle. Located 30 kilometres to the northeast of Rügen island off the coast of Pomerania (Germany), this new 476 megawatt (MW) installation will supply renewable energy to 475,000 households.
Baltic Eagle, with a capacity of 476 MW, will have 50 wind turbines of 9.53-MW of unit power on monopiles, for an annual production of 1.9 TWh, sufficient to meet the needs of 475,000 homes and avoid the emission of almost one million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.
In July 2023, we signed a strategic agreement with Masdar to co-invest in the Baltic Sea wind farm, which under the terms of the deal is valued at approximately €1.6 billion euros. Since 2006, the UAE’s flagship renewable energy company has been a pioneer in advancing the clean energy sector in the UAE, the Middle East and around the world, delivering more than 20 GW of energy to power more than 5.25 million homes.
Main components of wind turbines
MHI Vestas Offshore Wind is the official supplier of the MVOW V174 wind turbines to be delivered and installed by 2024. These turbines have the industrys largest commercially proven rotor size and most powerful output, with 174-m rotor blade diameter — whose swept area is 23,778 m2, equivalent to 3.3 football fields — and a hub elevation of 107 m above sea level. It will be the largest project Vestas has installed offshore in Germany.
For its part, the foundations were carried out by Asturian Windar and German EEW SPC.
Windar manufactured as well the 50 transition pieces in Avilés (Asturias), which join the turbine towers to the foundations. The company has completed in 2022 the entire production, which involved some 800 jobs and involved nearly 30 suppliers from northern Spain.
The 50 monopiles were fabricated at EEWs mega-factory in Rostock (by the Baltic Sea). With a 9 to 8.75 m diameter, a 75 to 90 m length and a maximum foundation weight of 1,402 tonnes, these components were built from January 2022 to January 2023. Load out begun in April 2023.
The transport and installation of the foundations as well as the supply, transport and installation of the interconnection cables have been awarded to Van Oord. The Dutch company is deploying its 8,000-tonne heavy lift installation vessel, the Svanen, to install the 50 monopiles, which has installed more than 700 foundations across Europe. Van Oord will use its Nexus vessel and the Dig-It trencher, which will be adapted to the difficult sea floor conditions in the Baltic, to lay the cables between the various assemblies.
Electrical substations
The offshore substation — central core whose function is to collect the electricity produced by the wind turbines and transform the voltage from 66 kV to 220 kV — will be installed and ran by 50Hertz, the transmission system operator in north-eastern Germany and the company responsible for connecting the offshore wind farm to the grid, and be used by both companies.
Weighing a total of 7,150 tonnes, it consists of foundations and a platform with transformers and electrical equipment. It will be shipped and installed by the marine shipper Heerema, and its structural elements will be manufactured by joint-venture Iemants-Fabricom.
The wind farm will be connected to the Lubmin onshore wind farm via two high voltage subsea cables, each measuring 90 km, which will also be installed by 50Hertz.
It will be located in waters between 40 and 45 metres deep and cover an area of 40 km2 to the northeast of Rügen Island. Activities at the wind farm will be undertaken from the port of Sassnitz-Mukran in Rügen.
Installation work on the power substation was completed in February 2023.
The operations and maintenance building will be located in the port of Sassnitz, with whom the company has signed a lease agreement.
This development of this project will create high-quality jobs along the entire value chain of the offshore wind sector, which has significant potential for growth, while helping to reindustrialise and modernise shipyards all over the continent.
The company was awarded this project in April 2018 in a second offshore tender launched by the Federal Networks Agency (Bundesnetzagentur), and it has now finalised the geotechnical and geophysical survey — worth more than 10 million euros —, essential to the construction and commissioning of this renewable plant.
All the necessary formalities for designing and acquiring the main components are progressing according to the schedule. |
