The Spanish utility boosts its power production from wind at sea by 74.1% as first power flows from the giant East Anglia 1 (EA1).
Iberdrola’s offshore wind electricity output soared during the first quarter of 2020 after first power was fed into the UK grid by the Spanish utility last year coming from the giant East Anglia 1 (EA1) offshore array.
The company produced 1,119 gigawatt hours from wind farms at sea in the quarter, up 74.1% from the first quarter of 2018.
The jump in offshore production came mainly as Iberdrola’s UK subsidiary Scottish Power in September 2019 started to produce first electricity at the 714MW EA1 array in the Southern North Sea off England.
The company earlier said that the array – one of Europe’s largest offshore wind projects – will be completed this year.
First power from the array was enough to boost Scottish Power’s UK output by 203% to 680GWh, and its UK capacity to 824MW.
With that, offshore wind now represents 30% of the company’s overall capacity in the UK (up from 9% a year earlier).
Overall, Iberdrola has 1,174MW in installed offshore wind capacity, but that still pales compared to its 16.9GW in onshore wind capacity world-wide.
The utility plans to boost its offshore capacity, and currently has 10GW under development, with as much as 2GW coming from floating wind projects, which Iberdrola reckons it can build by 2030.
Iberdrola currently also operates the 350MW Wikinger array in the German part of the Baltic Sea, where it also is building a 10MW extension (Wikinger Süd), as well as the nearby 476MW Baltic Eagle project.
The company also has a vast project pipeline in the US and France.
