UAE’s Masdar has acquired a 49% stake in Spanish utility provider Iberdrola’s EUR 1.6 bn Baltic Eagle offshore wind farm off the coast of Germany, according to a statement. The financials of the acquisition were not disclosed, and Iberdrola will retain a majority share of 51%. Masdar was named as a top contender vying for the stake in the 476 MW farm earlier this month along with Swiss fund Energy Infrastructure Partners (EIP) and Australian asset manager Macquarie’s clean investment arm Green Investment Group (GIG).

The details: Baltic Eagle is currently being built off Germany’s northeastern coast and will comprise 50 wind turbines, each with a 9.53 MW generation capacity. The project — which is slated to kick off initial operations by the end of 2024 — will produce 1.9 TWh of clean energy once it achieves full production capacity, providing renewable power to some 475k homes and offsetting c. 800k tons of carbon emissions annually. 100% of Baltic Eagle’s production volume has already been sold via long-term offtake agreements, Masdar notes.

Not Masdar’s first foray into Europe’s clean energy market: The Mubadala-owned firm signed an agreement with Germany’s Uniper last December to develop a green hydrogen plant in the UAE powered by 1.3 GW of solar energy. The plant is expected to generate green hydrogen by 2026 and the EU wants to import the clean fuel the facility will generate. The company also signed an agreement in January with the Port of Amsterdam and Dutch firms SkyNRG, Evos Amsterdam, and Zenith Energy to explore the possibilities of green fuel exports to Europe. Later in February, Masdar inked an MoU with Austrian utilities company Verbund to produce and export green hydrogen to Central European countries, with a focus on Austria and Southern Germany.

And Iberdrola has a renewables and green fuels investment strategy: The sale of shares in Baltic Eagle is part of Iberdrola’s strategy to finance its EUR 47 bn investment plan, which will see it allocate EUR 17 bn to offshore wind projects in France, Germany, the UK, and the US, earmarking EUR 11.7 bn to install onshore wind farms and EUR 11.2 bn to build onshore solar energy plants. Iberdrola expects to exceed 80 GW of installed renewables capacity by 2030 on the back of planned investments ranging from EUR 65-75 bn between 2026 and 2030. The company currently has a pipeline of 3 GW worth of offshore wind projects under construction and has an operational offshore wind asset portfolio of 1.2 GW, the statement notes.