Masdar just helped raise the UK’s largest wind turbine, with blades longer than a Premier League football pitch.
The Abu Dhabi renewables company, working alongside ScottishPower (an Iberdrola subsidiary), installed the first 14 MW turbine at the £4 billion East Anglia THREE offshore wind farm off the Suffolk coast, The National reported on April 21. Each blade measures 115 metres. All 285 blades for the 95 turbine project are being made at Siemens Gamesa’s factory in Hull. The full farm will power roughly 1.3 million British homes when it comes online later this year.
What to look for
We read this as MENA capital moving up the offshore wind value chain, where projects are larger and more complex. Watch whether Masdar brings the same playbook home as the region tests whether offshore platforms can compete with onshore wind on cost. My view is that the supply chain relationships and project finance built abroad will shape what MENA can build at home.
What it means for MENA
An Emirati firm now co-owns a farm its partners call one of the world’s largest, and has just helped install the UK’s largest turbine on it. My read is that the expertise gained at East Anglia THREE will flow back into the Gulf and North Africa and shorten the learning curve when the region tenders its own offshore projects. MENA is now a source of wind capital as well as a destination for it.
