Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm

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 800 thousand 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 industry's 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 EEW's 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 and ended in September 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 deployed 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 used its Nexus vessel and the Dig-It trencher, which is adapted to the difficult sea floor conditions in the Baltic, to lay the cables between the various assemblies.

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.

A megaproject in the Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea holds an incredible potential of 93,000 MW for offshore wind in Europe. Alongside Germany, several countries, such as Poland, Sweden and Estonia are exploring new opportunities for offshore wind developments.

Baltic Eagle represents the second large offshore initiative promoted by the Iberdrola group in Germany, after the commissioning of the Wikinger offshore wind farm (350 MW) at the end of 2017. The company also has another offshore installation currently in development in Germany: Wikinger Süd (10 MW). These three wind farms, located next to the island of Rügen, will give rise to the largest offshore wind complex in the Baltic Sea, with a total installed capacity of 836 MW and a joint investment of €2.5 billion.

Baltic Eagle and Wikinger, with a combined capacity of 826 MW, will comprise the heart of the Baltic Sea Hub, which will act as a centre for offshore and onshore services, as well as provide local content for Iberdrola's projects in the Germany and the Baltic coastal countries. They will be able to produce enough energy to meet 45 % of the total electricity consumption of the state of Mecklenburg-West Pomerania and prevent the emission of 1.65 million tonnes of CO₂ per year, thus contributing to meeting the emission reduction targets set by Germany.

In addition, the company has submitted a bid for the construction of a new farm in this sea: Windanker, with the idea of expanding this hub to more than 1 GW by the end of 2026.