ScottishPower Renewables, the UK unit of Spain’s Iberdrola Group, has said that the first of four onshore transformers for the company’s 1.4GW East Anglia Three offshore wind farm has arrived at the company’s onshore converter station site in Suffolk.
The 323-tonne, 463-MVA transformer is 9.6m long, 4.1m wide and 4.3m tall. It was manufactured by Siemens Energy in Germany and shipped to the UK from the Port of Bremen.
The remaining three transformers for the project are due to be shipped using the same route on June 30, July 7, and July 14.
“The delivery of the first transformer to Bramford is an important milestone not just for our onshore works to build the infrastructure needed to ensure the clean energy from our wind farm can get from power to plug, but for the East Anglia Three project as whole,” stated East Anglia Three’s grid execution manager Niall Armstrong.
East Anglia Three is the second of four wind farms to be developed by ScottishPower as part of the East Anglia Hub.
The wind farm will consist of up to 100 wind turbines located around 69km offshore Great Yarmouth. Electricity generated at East Anglia Three arrives onshore at Bawdsey before being transmitted underground to Bramford.
From the converter station, the electricity can be supplied to the UK’s national grid for onward distribution to homes and businesses.
East Anglia Three
In March 2024, Iberdrola said it had signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Amazon for 159MW of renewable electricity from East Anglia Three, equivalent to 700GWh per year of electricity.
The wind farm’s infrastructure will also include an offshore converter station and up to four subsea export cables to transmit electricity from the offshore facilities to shore.
The East Anglia Three project is due to enter service in 2026 and work is well underway. In a separate update relating to the project, Navantia Seanergies and Windar Renovables said in mid-June that they had completed the first monopile foundation for East Anglia Three.
The two companies have been contracted to supply 45 monopiles for the project.
East Anglia Three is currently wholly owned by ScottishPower but Masdar, a renewable energy subsidiary of Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment, is expected to buy into the project after forming an offshore wind and green hydrogen alliance with Iberdrola in December 2023.
At the time, the two companies cited their co-investment in the Baltic Eagle wind farm in Germany and said they were now aiming to achieve a similar co-investment with East Anglia Three. However, it has not been confirmed whether the investment has yet been finalised.
The other projects in the East Anglia Hub include East Anglia One, East Anglia Two and East Anglia One North. East Anglia One, a joint venture between ScottishPower and Macquarie’s Green Investment Group (GIG), entered service in 2020. In May 2024, Macquarie Asset Management agreed to sell a 10% stake in the project to NTR, retaining a 10% interest.
East Anglia Two and East Anglia One North received planning consent in 2022. Construction on these two wind farms is being targeted for 2024-25.
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