Agreement has just been reached to connect the East Anglia Array, with a projected capacity of up to 7,200 MW, to National Grid’s land-based transmission network.
East Anglia ONE, the first phase of the development, will have a 1,200 MW capacity from up to 400 wind turbines located 43 kms off the coast of Suffolk, in central-eastern England.
Engineering design work has begun for phase one, covering the offshore wind turbines as well as on marine substations, transformer centres and distribution lines.
Iberdrola Renovables, global leader in wind power, through its ScottishPower Renewables subsidiary, and Vattenfall of Sweden, the world’s leading developer of offshore wind farms, have begun the first phase of the 7,200 MW East Anglia Array offshore wind energy project.
An important step forward was reached with recent agreement with National Grid covering access to the land-based grid system for the 7,200 MW wind farm, among the largest offshore wind development projects in the world.
Work has begun on the first phase on the project, East Anglia ONE, located 43 kilometres off the coast of Suffolk, which will involve installing up to 400 new generation wind turbines in the North Sea with a capacity of 1,200 MW.
One of the main advantages of this site, covering an area of nearly 300 square kilometres, is that the waters where the wind turbines are to be installed are relatively shallow, between 35 and 45 meters deep.
The project, being undertaken through a joint venture of Iberdrola Renovables subsidiary ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall, named East Anglia Offshore Wind (EAOW), is currently in the engineering design phase to determine the location of wind turbines, substations, transformer platforms and connection lines to the mainland.
Other advantages of East Anglia ONE include the excellent wind conditions in the area, the site’s proximity to several ports on the Eastern coast of England, and access to the electricity grid. These features make this one of IBERDROLA RENOVABLES’ most important development projects. Its proximity to the coast means the company will have lower connection costs and transport times.
The East Anglia Array zone was awarded to ScottishPower Renewables and Vattenfall in January by The Crown Estates, one of nine offshore zones included in a Round 3 bidding process. Due to the large quantities of energy to be managed, the connection process has been divided into six phases, which will be implemented between 2015 and 2021, using four substations that will be built for this purpose.
United Kingdom, centre of Iberdrola Renovables’ offshore operations
With the United Kingdom as a base, Iberdrola Renovables will be a frontrunner in the future development of offshore energy technology in Europe, regarded as the second renewables revolution. To this end, the company created an Offshore Business Division in Scotland to manage development of the large volume of offshore wind power projects awarded. These amount to around 12,000 MW worldwide and will be added gradually to its project pipeline.
In addition to the East Anglia Array, Iberdrola Renovables is developing offshore projects across Europe (mainly the UK and Germany) and Spain, which will contribute a total of 4,800 MW of additional capacity.
Iberdrola Renovables has 2,300 MW under development in the UK, including the West of Duddon Sands facility (approximately 400 MW developed in conjunction with Dong), whose construction is scheduled to get underway in 2012, and the Argyll Array facility, which will have up to 1,800 MW of capacity. The company is developing a further 1,000 MW in northern Europe, including the Wikinger offshore wind complex in the German zone of the Baltic Sea.
With operations in 23 countries, Iberdrola Renovables is the world leader in wind energy by both installed capacity (more than 12,000 MW at the end of the third quarter of 2010) and output (18,100 million kWh in the first nine months of 2010).
