Avangrid Takes Iberdrola’s Offshore Wind Expertise and Wallet to US

With the United States only starting to chart its wind turbine arrays installed at sea, Iberdrola has been developing these projects across Europe for a while, and has now open doors to the American offshore wind sector through its US renewable energy division Avangrid Renewables, which won the rights to build an offshore wind farm off Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 16 March.

Aside from its offshore wind expertise, Iberdrola possesses a vast renewable energy investment budget as well.

Oregon-headquartered Avangrid Renewables already has more than USD 10 billion of operating assets totalling over 6GW of owned and controlled wind and solar generation in 20 states. However, when it comes to offshore renewable energy development, the company will draw on the expertise its parent company has gained in Europe.

“Between our leading position in the United States, including North Carolina, where we operate a wind farm near Elizabeth City, along with the expertise and experience of our international affiliate, Iberdrola Group, in developing offshore wind in Europe, we felt we were well positioned to secure this bid,” James P. Torgerson, CEO of AVANGRID, said. “We are confident in our ability to leverage those channels, along with our supply chain knowledge and our development and transmission expertise, in order to deliver a competitively priced product to our eventual customers.”

Avangrid Renewables was also one of the bidders for an offshore wind lease off New York at the auction held in December 2016, when the lease rights were won by Statoil after 33 rounds and the Norwegian company agreeing to pay almost USD 42.5 million.

During the New York auction, Avangrid Renewables has shown its deep pocket and interest in developing US offshore wind projects, as the company was placing bids to the 30th round, in which it offered USD 32 million, withdrawing from the bidding after the asking price in the following round was set to USD 36.5 million.

Its Spain-based mother company, Iberdrola, has earmarked vast budget for renewable energy projects, and the company announced in February that it is increasing its net investments by EUR 1 billion, from EUR 24 billion planned at the beginning of 2016 to EUR 25 billion, with 42% of the amount earmarked for renewable energy projects, and most of them located in the United States.

In the UK, Iberdrola, through its subsidiary ScottishPower Renewables, operates the 389MW West of Duddon Sands offshore wind farm (operational since 2014), and is developing the East Anglia offshore wind projects, with the 714MW East Anglia ONE nearing construction phase and East Anglia TWO and THREE currently in the feasibility study phase.

The first wind turbine at the company’s German 350MW offshore wind farm, Wikinger, was installed at the end of January, and the wind farm is scheduled to be operational by the end of this year.

Iberdrola is also developing a 496MW offshore wind farm in France, for which it is awaiting construction permit.

Offshore WIND Staff