Enbridge takes stake in Albatros offshore wind farm

Enbridge Inc. has announced it will acquire 49.89 percent of the shares in EnBW's 112 MW Albatros offshore wind farm in the North Sea. EnBW will retain the remaining 50.1 percent.

As we reported in early March, Enbridge Inc. acquired an effective 50 percent ownership in the 497 MW Hohe See offshore wind project from EnBW.

As a result, EnBW and Enbridge have expanded their cooperation to include a second offshore project and will now jointly realise both projects – EnBW Hohe See and EnBW Albatros – together. The agreed participation model envisages that both partners will jointly oversee and finance the further realisation of the projects from construction through to commissioning. 

Albatros will feature 16 turbines of type Siemens SWT-7.0-154 and will have an installed capacity of 112 MW, while Hohe See comprises 71 Siemens SWT-7.0-154 turbine, rated at 7 MW, totalling 497 MW. EnBW will realise both wind farms by 2019 as a joint project with a capacity of around 610 MW. 

EnBW Albatros is located in the so-called "exclusive economic zone" of the North Sea in the immediate vicinity of the EnBW wind farms Hohe See and He Dreiht on an area covering 11 square kilometres. After the scheduled commissioning of the wind farms in 2019, Hohe See and Albatros will together generate around 2.5 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually. The electricity generated by Albatros and Hohe See will thus cover the aggregate electricity requirements of all private households in Munich – Germany's third largest city.

Siemens AG has been appointed general contractor for the turbines, foundations and, for the first time, the transformer station. The Dutch company GEOSEA NV is the subcontractor responsible for the foundations. The contractual partner for the array cabling at the wind farm is VBMS GmbH.