E.ON Commits to €880 Million Humber Gateway Windfarm

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- German energy giant, E.ON AG (OTC:EONGY) (Dusseldorf, Germany), continued to fulfil its renewable energy promises this week by confirming its commitment to building an €880 million ($1.15 billion) offshore windfarm off the east Yorkshire coast in England.

The Humber Gateway windfarm will boast 73 turbines and generate up to 219 megawatts (MW) of electricity, enough for approximately 170,000 homes. The windfarm will be located 8 kilometres off the east Yorkshire coast, north of the mouth of the Humber river. Work at the site will ramp up in March 2012 with an estimated completion date of Spring 2015. E.ON received the green light for the project, back in February this year. For additional information, see February 15, 2011, article - Green Light for Humber Gateway Offshore Windfarm.

U.K. Prime Minister, David Cameron, commented: "I welcome E.ON's significant investment, which is a vote of confidence in renewable energy and in the U.K. market. It will create 1,000 jobs in the next few years, spearhead development of the U.K.'s fast growing offshore wind supply chain and strengthen links between the U.K. and Germany in renewables and grid." Humber Gateway is E.ON's fifth offshore windfarm in the U.K., after the Blyth windfarm in Northumberland, Scroby Sands off the coast of Great Yarmouth, Robin Rigg in the Solway Firth and the planned London Array windfarm in which E.ON holds a stake. The €880 million investment in Humber Gateway forms part of a significant €7 billion ($9.1 billion) renewable energy fund which E.ON revealed this week. The money will be used to build two other offshore windfarms. These include the €1 billion ($1.30 billion) Amrumbank West windfarm, located in the German North Sea. Boasting 80 turbines from Siemens AG (NYSE:SI) (Munich, Germany), it will have a generating capacity of 288MW, enough to power almost 300,000 homes.

E.ON is also building the 48 MW Kårehamn wind farm, located in the Baltic Sea off Sweden's southern coast, and which will cost an estimated €120 million ($157 million). Both the Humber Gateway and Kårehamn windfarms will use Vestas' V112 turbines, rated at 3MW each.

The rest of the €7 billion will be used to create new transmission lines. One of these is a new high-voltage line between Breklum and Flensburg, which became operational this week. It connects the north Frisian coast, which is home to numerous windfarms, with the ultrahigh-voltage transmission system and triples the capacity from 310MW to 1,000MW. It will be used transport the electricity generated by Amrumbank West when it is commissioned in 2015.

Johannes Teyssen, E.ON CEO, said: "Amrumbank is our clear commitment to helping to transform Germany's energy system. Renewables are a cornerstone of our strategy, and offshore wind is one of E.ON's growth areas. Going forward, we intend to commission a new offshore wind farm every 18 months. We have invested €7 billion in renewables during the past five years, and we will invest further €7 billion over the next five years as a substitute for other power generation."

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