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Siemens claims German offshore wind market is now "picking up speed"

Plans for Germany's first Baltic Sea wind farm moved a step forward this week, after energy company EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG inked a deal for 21 turbines from engineering giant Siemens Energy.

The company said that work on the 48.3MW Baltic 1 wind farm, which will be located 16km off Germany's Baltic coast and will cover seven square kilometres, would begin early next year with the aim of bringing the turbines online by the end of 2010.

Dr. Hans-Josef Zimmer, chief technology officer at EnBW, hailed the project as being of "special significance" for the embryonic German offshore sector, which to date has focused on the North Sea.

The project is also the first of four planned offshore wind farms from EnBW, which the company acquired the rights for early last year. It said that the four projects, two in the North Sea and two in Baltic Sea, will require a combined €3bn in investment, but should result in 1,200MW of capacity and make a significant contribution to the company's target of sourcing a fifth of its power from renewable sources by 2020.

The order also provides evidence that despite the recession, the outlook for offshore wind development remains upbeat, according to René Umlauft, chief executive of the Siemens Renewable Energy Division.

"2009 promises to be a record year for offshore wind power," he predicted, noting that already this year Siemens has started work on five offshore wind farms in Britain and Denmark. "The order for Baltic 1 shows that the German market is now also slowly picking up speed."

He added that the long-term potential for the sector remains enormous, arguing that "to date, only 1.5 per cent of the options available in the North Sea and Baltic have been developed."

Umlauft's predictions are in stark contrast to those of the British Wind Energy Association, which recently warned that without further assistance from the government, planned offshore wind farms could be delayed as a result of rising turbine costs and limited credit availability.