Siemens bags another offshore wind project

Reaffirming its move away from nuclear power, Siemens AG has won another order to build a large offshore wind farm in Germany.

The German industrial giant announced that it will build a 288-megawatt facility in the North Sea for German utility E.ON. The wind farm's 80 turbines will provide electricity for about 300,000 households when it goes online in 2015, Siemens said in a recent press release.

The win marks Siemens 7th offshore wind project in Germany, where it has installed 1.6 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity - larger than a typical nuclear station.

Siemens is steadily building up a strong presence in renewable energy - primarily wind and also solar - as it moves away from nuclear in lock step with the German government's decision to abandon nuclear power. It is also charging ahead in the natural gas business, and counts improved-efficiency gas turbines among its environmental portfolio.

“Our offshore technology will play a substantial role in building up a clean electricity supply in Germany," Felix Ferlemann, CEO of Siemens Energy’s Wind Power Division, said in the press release.

Siemens is also installing  offshore wind turbines in other countries, such as at the London Array project in the Thames Estuary, which would be the world's largest offshore wind farm at 1 gigawatts. Part of that project is under threat from an environmental review.

Siemens anticipates that offshore wind will account for 20 percent of the wind market in 5 years. Europe will have an installed offshore wind capacity of 80 GW by 2030,  equal to about half the current capacity of all German power plants, Siemens says.

Photo: Siemens

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