Masdar acquires 49% stake in UK’s offshore wind farms

Masdar

Abu Dhabi’s renewable energy company Masdar has acquired a 49 percent stake in the 3-gigawatt (GW) Dogger Bank South (DBS) offshore wind farm project in the UK, as part of its global expansion drive.

The acquisition is part of the planned £11 billion ($14 billion) joint investment with Germany’s renewables major RWE to support net-zero goals in the UK. 

The German company will hold the remaining 51 percent stake. Masdar and RWE announced the DBS projects at Cop28 in the UAE last December.  

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Located over 100 km off the northeastern coast of England, the wind farm is split across two sites – DBS East and DBS West – each with a capacity of 1.5 GW. 

Construction is expected to start by the end of 2025, with the first 800 megawatts (MW) of electricity planned to come online in 2029. The projects will be fully commissioned by the end of 2031.

The facility is anticipated to generate electricity to power three million UK homes and create 2,000 jobs during construction and more than 1,000 during the operational phase.

The project builds on the £10 billion UAE-UK Sovereign Investment Partnership (UK-UAE SIP) to invest in technology, infrastructure and the energy transition.

The companies will submit applications for development consent orders during the second quarter of 2024.  

Masdar, RWE and partners launched the 630 MW London Array wind farm, the world’s largest at the time, a decade ago. The UAE company has also invested in the 30 MW Hywind project in Scotland and the 402 MW Dudgeon offshore wind farm off the coast of Norfolk, in the North Sea. 

Last year, Masdar agreed to co-invest in the 476 MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm off the coast of Germany, which will power 475,000 homes.

Masdar Arlington Energy, a subsidiary of UAE’s Masdar, has started construction on two battery energy storage system (BESS) projects in the UK.

The Royle Barn Road plant in Rochdale and Welkin Road plant in Stockport will have a combined capacity of 55 MW and provide enough energy to power 25,700 homes. 

Masdar has developed projects in more than 40 countries and is targeting a renewable energy portfolio capacity of at least 100 GW by 2030 and an annual green hydrogen production capacity of up to one million tonnes by the same year.