Meed | Masdar acquires UK offshore wind stake

Masdar acquires UK offshore wind stake

1 March 2024

Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) has completed its acquisition of a 49% shareholding in the 3GW Dogger Bank South (DBS) offshore wind farms located off the northeastern coast of England.

According to Masdar, the £11bn ($13.9bn) joint investment with Germany’s RWE helps boost the UK economy and demonstrates the UAE’s commitment to supporting the country’s net-zero goals.

The DBS offshore wind farm will be split across two sites, DBS East and DBS West, each with a capacity of 1.5GW and spanning 500 square kilometres.

Masdar and RWE signed an agreement to join forces on the DBS projects at the global climate summit, Cop28, in the UAE last December.

With the closing of the transaction, Masdar is now a shareholder in both projects, while RWE retains a 51% stake.

Construction on the projects could start as early as the end of 2025, with the first 800MW of electricity planned to come online in 2029. The projects are expected to be fully commissioned by the end of 2031.

The planned facility is expected to generate enough electricity to power three million UK homes and will lead to the creation of 2,000 jobs during construction and more than 1,000 direct and indirect jobs during the operational phase, said Masdar.

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

The announcement follows an investment made by Masdar and its partners in 2013 in the 630MW London Array wind farm, the world’s largest at the time.

Masdar has also invested in the 30MW Hywind project, the world’s first floating offshore wind farm, and the 402MW Dudgeon offshore wind farm.

Last year, Masdar agreed to co-invest in the 476MW Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm.

The UAE clean energy investor aims to reach a renewable energy portfolio capacity of 100GW by 2030, supporting the target to triple global renewables capacity by the end of this decade.

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Jennifer Aguinaldo