Siemens to supply 80 wind turbines in German North Sea

In February 2013, Siemens was awarded an order by Germany's wpd group to supply and install 80 wind turbines for the Butendiek offshore wind power plant off Germany's North Sea coast. When it comes online in 2015, the wind power plant's total generating capacity of 288Mw will be sufficient to supply some 370,000 households with ecofriendly electricity. The agreement also covers a long-term maintenance contract for a period of ten years, the first of its kind for an offshore wind project. Siemens is to provide a new logistics concept that includes a service operation vessel specially developed for deployments to offshore wind facilities. The order volume including service is more than EUR700 million.

Butendiek is the eighth offshore wind power plant order that Siemens has won in German waters and the second in Europe with an equity stake from Siemens Financial Services.

"By 2020, we estimate that 500Gw wind power will be installed worldwide," notes Felix Ferlemann, CEO of Siemens Energy's wind power division. "Offshore wind power plants constitute by far the fastest growing segment of this market. Maritime wind power is playing a key role in Germany's energy turnaround efforts. Its broad acceptance among the general public and significantly higher energy capture than onshore installations are particular points in its favor."

As Randy Zwirn, CEO of the service division at Siemens Energy, points out: "Wind energy can make a major contribution to ensuring electrical power supply. To do so, however, wind turbines must be reliable and work at maximum output. This holds true on land just as it does under the harsh conditions at sea. Our experienced service technicians and intelligent maintenance concepts help to reliably maintain wind turbine performance over the entire estimated service life of these units - for up to 25 years."

Butendiek, to be erected about 32km west of the island of Sylt near the German-Danish border, is the second project-financed offshore wind power plant in Germany for which Siemens is supplying wind turbines and services. The wind turbines, each with a capacity of 3.6Mw and a rotor diameter of 120m, are to be erected across a surface area of 42sq km in waters measuring about 20m deep.

Siemens is also bringing a comprehensive service package to the Butendiek offshore project, tailored to ensure maximum long-term exploitation of the wind farm's power potential. These efforts include remote monitoring and diagnostics solutions implemented in conjunction with state-of-the-art weather forecasting techniques. This facilitates anticipatory, forward-looking service planning and enables maintenance work to be performed in bundled packages within suitable timeframes. Siemens has also developed a new, customized logistics concept for Butendiek: Siemens' service technicians will live and work on board a specially designed ship, the Service Operation Vessel.

Siemens Financial Services, Marguerite Fund, Industriens Pension, and PKA A/S (each indirectly holding 22.5%) provide, as financial investors, a substantial portion of the required equity and have secured the financing of the project with a total project volume of EUR1.3 bn. Wpd group will as well contribute to the equity and in addition focuses mainly on project development as well as the project management. All partners have aligned their resources in order to secure a project finance structure on a 67% senior debt and 33% equity basis with a consortium of up to nine banks, involving multilateral institution like European Investment Bank, KfW and EKF supporting the project with significant funds.

Wind power and energy service are part of Siemens' Environmental Portfolio. In fiscal 2012, revenue from the Portfolio totaled about €33 billion, making Siemens one of the world's largest suppliers of ecofriendly technologies. In the same period, our products and solutions enabled customers to reduce their carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions by more than 330 million tons, an amount equal to the total annual CO₂ emissions of Berlin, Delhi, Hong Kong, Istanbul, London, New York, Singapore and Tokyo.