Masdar, Abu Dhabi’s clean energy company, has successfully acquired a 49 percent stake in the Dogger Bank South (DBS) project, a massive offshore wind farm with a capacity of 3 gigawatts (GW). This joint investment of £11 billion ($14 billion) with RWE, a leading German renewable energy company, is set to have a significant positive impact on the U.K. economy and demonstrates the UAE’s commitment to helping achieve net-zero goals in the UK and worldwide. It builds upon the existing £10 billion UAE-U.K. Sovereign Investment Partnership (U.K.-UAE SIP) aimed at investing in technology, infrastructure, and the energy transition.
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This announcement highlights Masdar’s extensive support for global offshore wind projects. A decade ago, Masdar, along with RWE and other partners, launched the London Array wind farm, which had a capacity of 630MW and was the world’s largest at that time. Masdar has also invested in the Hywind project, a 30MW floating offshore wind farm and the first of its kind globally, as well as the Dudgeon offshore wind farm with a capacity of 402MW. In the previous year, Masdar agreed to co-invest in the Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm, which will generate 476MW of power and supply approximately 475,000 households.
3 million British homes
The DBS offshore wind farm will be located over 100 kilometers off the northeastern coast of England and will be divided into two sites: DBS East and DBS West, each with a capacity of 1.5 GW and spanning 500 square kilometers. Once operational, this mega-facility is expected to produce enough electricity to power three million typical U.K. homes. Furthermore, it will create around 2,000 jobs during the construction phase and over 1,000 direct and indirect jobs during its operational phase.
Goal of 100GW renewable energy portfolio by 2030
Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar, expressed his enthusiasm for the Dogger Bank South project, underscoring its importance in developing Masdar’s offshore wind capacity and expertise. He also reaffirmed Masdar’s goal of achieving a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030, which is in line with the UAE’s aspiration, as outlined in The UAE Consensus, to triple global renewable capacity by the end of the decade.
Masdar and RWE entered into an agreement to collaborate on the DBS projects during COP28 in the UAE in December of the previous year. With the completion of this transaction, Masdar now holds a stake in both projects, while RWE retains a 51 percent share. Additionally, the two companies will work together to develop and operate the wind farms.
Construction timeline
Construction on the projects is anticipated to commence as early as the end of 2025, with the initial 800MW of electricity expected to be generated by 2029. Moreover, the projects are scheduled to be fully commissioned by the end of 2031.
The upcoming milestone for the projects involves submitting applications for Development Consent Orders, which is expected to occur in the second quarter of 2024. If successful, the subsequent steps will include securing Contracts for Difference (CfD), followed by financing, construction, and ultimately commissioning by 2031.
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