Iberdrola has awarded Navantia and Windar a contract worth over €120 million for the East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm, which the electricity group is currently developing in the North Sea. With 714 megawatts (MW) capacity, it is the largest renewable energy project ever undertaken by a Spanish company.
The agreement provides for the fabrication of foundation systems for the East Anglia ONE wind turbines. Navantia will manufacture 34 state-of-the-art jackets at its shipyard in Fene (Spain) and Windar will be forging the jacket piles at its facilities in Avilés (Spain).
The contract award follows an international tendering process for the project’s foundations in which, alongside Navantia, other leading companies in the offshore industry have participated.
The agreement was signed this afternoon, at the Shipbuilding Museum (Fundación Exponav) at the Ferrol Arsenal facilities, by the Chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, and the Chairman of Navantia, José Manuel Revuelta, at an event also attended by the Chairman of the Regional Government of Galicia, Alberto Nuñez Feijóo.
This commission comes just weeks after Navantia and Windar successfully delivered 29 jackets and 116 piles for the Wikinger offshore wind farm being built by Iberdrola in the Baltic Sea.
Through this new award Iberdrola enables Navantia and Windar to maintain jobs at their respective facilities. Between March 2017 and June 2018, some 850,000 man-hours will be provided for, meaning an average of 600/700 jobs with up to 1,300 people working at the busiest times. Also, local and international suppliers stand to benefit, as was the case with the Wikinger project.
After signing the agreement, the Chairman of Iberdrola, Ignacio Galán, pointed out that “thanks to the quality of the works carried out for our offshore wind farm in Germany and the know-how and expertise acquired in the fabrication of metal structures -both at Fene and Puerto Real-, we are pleased to anounce yet another contract award to Navantia, this time for the East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm project being developed by Iberdrola in British waters of the North Sea.
“With this new contract, whose value is 33% higher that the previous award, Navantia will again participate, through Iberdrola, in one of the world’s largest renewable energy projects”.
José Manuel Revuelta, Chairman of Navantia, said in turn that “this contract consolidates Navantia as a key player in the offshore wind industry and highlights the company’s aspiration to expand its participation in East Anglia ONE by increasing the number of jackets to be built in Fene and winning the offshore substation tender process”.
East Anglia ONE, one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms
East Anglia ONE will be one of the world’s largest offshore wind farms by the time it is commissioned in 2020, with installed capacity of 714 MW, enough to supply clean energy to over 500,000 average English households.
It is the largest renewable energy project carried out by a Spanish company to date, with total investment valued at £2.5 billion, and a clear demonstration of Iberdrola’s commitment to combating climate change.
Within the procurement process for East Anglia ONE, Iberdrola has already awarded Siemens the supply of 102 wind turbines, with a unit capacity of 7 MW, for more than £800 million.
The scale of this initiative is unprecedented in the Spanish renewable industry. For example, the wind farm site will cover an area of more than 300 km2, the equivalent to 30,000 football pitches; the export cable that will carry energy to the mainland will be 85 km long; the substation will cover a surface area of 1,144 m2 (the size of the Vicente Calderón stadium in Madrid) and the wind turbine blades will be 75 metres long each.
East Anglia ONE is the third offshore wind project to be undertaken by Iberdrola. West of Duddon Sands (389 MW) is currently in operation in the UK and Wikinger (350 MW) is being built in German waters of the Baltic Sea.
This new offshore initiative is part of an even more ambitious project. Iberdrola has applied for planning consent to build East Anglia Three which has 1,200 MW capacity. If approved, total offshore wind capacity at East Anglia could reach 2,000 MW.
Comparison between the ‘jackets’ at East Anglia One and the ones at Wikinger
About IBERDROLA:
With over 170 years of experience, IBERDROLA is today one of the largest electric utilities in the world and a benchmark for renewable energies. The company produces and supplies electricity to around 100 million people in the various countries in which it operates, mainly Spain, the UK, the US, Mexico and Brazil.
After the radical transformation carried out in the last 15 years, IBERDROLA is now one of the largest electrical utilities in the world by market capitalisation. This is the result of the combination of its corporate vision -which in 2001 led the company to look ahead to future trends in the sector-, the strategy followed to make this vision a reality, its successful implementation, and the ethical values that have always guided all its actions.
On this basis, IBERDROLA is now embarking on a new stage of growth, supported by a strong investment drive between 2016 and 2020, essentially in regulated businesses or with long-term contracts, which will provide the security, stability and visibility that are the hallmarks of the company's business model. IBERDROLA will continue to maintain its social commitments, acting as a driver for the growth and generation of employment in the countries where it operates, and creating sustainable value for all its stakeholders.
About Navantia:
NAVANTIA constitutes a world reference in the design, construction and integration of warships with a high technological content, as well as ship repairs and upgrades. Its lines of activity also include the design and manufacturing of combat and command and control systems, integrated platform management systems, firing control systems, propulsion engines and life cycle support for all its products. Although its main activity is shipbuilding, NAVANTIA also designs and manufactures systems for the Spanish Army and Air Force.
NAVANTIA belongs to Grupo SEPI, a corporate holding which includes a total of 16 Spanish state-owned companies in which it has direct majority shareholdings, with a combined workforce of around 73,000 professionals in 2014, the Spanish state-owned television and radio corporation (Corporación Radiotelevisión Española), which is attached to SEPI, and a supervised public foundation. SEPI also has direct minority shareholdings in a further ten companies, and indirect shareholdings in more than one hundred companies.