EnBW and BP are planning an offshore wind farm off Scotland

offshore wind farm

Wind turbines of EnBW’s Baltic 2 offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea off the island of Rügen.

(Photo: dpa)

Dusseldorf The energy company EnBW and the oil company BP are expanding their cooperation in offshore wind energy. The two companies want to build another large wind farm off the Scottish coast. They had already announced plans to do so in the Irish Sea last year.

The two groups have now been awarded the contract for an 860 square kilometer area for the development of an offshore wind farm by Crown Estate Scotland, which manages the royal land holdings in Scotland, as EnBW announced on Monday. The “Morven” wind farm is to be built here from 2026/2027.

With an output of 2.9 gigawatts, it will deliver enough electricity to supply three million households with electricity. The area is almost 60 kilometers off the coast of Aberdeen and, according to the company, has an advantageous water depth as well as good wind conditions. Both companies are equally involved in the project.

EnBW and BP had already celebrated an auction success a year ago. At that time they were awarded the contract for an area in the Irish Sea. The two partners want to build the Morgan and Mona wind farms here, which together will have a capacity of around three gigawatts.

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“Following the success of the auction in Great Britain last year, we are of course particularly pleased that we have again been able to win a site auction for offshore wind farms together with BP,” said EnBW boss Frank Mastiaux. Together with the projects in the Irish Sea, “Morven” is the largest offshore project in the company’s history.

Shell builds floating wind farms

BP CEO Bernard Looney described EnBW as an “outstanding partner”. In fact, the energy company from southern Germany is now one of the most experienced wind companies in Europe. The company got involved off the German coast back in 2010 and now operates four offshore wind farms with a total output of one gigawatt. The energy company is also planning the first offshore wind farm in Germany without government funding.

The former nuclear company, which will have to shut down the last reactor in the coming year, had already decided in 2013 to gear power generation to the energy transition. To date, EnBW has invested five billion euros in renewable energies, and another four billion are planned by 2025. With the major projects in Great Britain, further billions are then due.

Oil company BP also has to look for alternatives away from its core business with oil and gas and wants to invest billions in renewable energies.

The same applies to its major competitor Shell: it also secured a large area at the auction together with the British utility Scottish Power. The two partners want to build two offshore wind farms with a total capacity of around five gigawatts.

The two wind farms are to be built on the east and north-east coasts of Scotland. Shell and Scottish Power rely on floating technology, in which the wind turbines are not anchored to the seabed but stand on floating foundations. The technology also allows offshore wind turbines to be built in deeper waters.

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