European Investment Bank grants €500m loan for offshore wind farm in Germany

The European Investment Bank (EIB) has agreed to provide a €500m loan to Diversified German conglomerate EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg (EnBW) to develop the 288MW EnBW Baltic 2 offshore wind farm.

The farm will comprise 80 wind turbines and generate a total of 1.2 billion kWh of electricity.

Proposed to be located 32 km north of the island of Rügen, the farm is expected to yield electricity for 340,000 households per annum and reduce carbon emissions by 900,000 tons.

European Investment Bank vice president Wilhelm Molterer highlighted the project’s scale and output and said that it will be a model for future projects of such magnitude.

"With the financing that has now been agreed, it will be possible to implement the extensive project quickly and make a decisive contribution to the success of the energy transition," addedMolterer.

EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG financial chairman Thomas Kusterer noted, "The commitment of EIB to a project like EnBW Baltic 2 makes a very essential contribution towards the energy transition."

The offshore farm is expected to be completed by 2014 with a new entity EnBW Baltic 2 GmbH to handle the operations.

EnBW Baltic 2 offshore wind farm in the German Baltic Sea is the company’s second venture in the region with the first, EnBW Baltic 1, lying south of the current project site.