History
2000
- Planning of Butendiek starts
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2000
Planning of Butendiek starts as a “Offshore-Bürgerwindpark” (community wind farm)
The focus of planning and realising a community wind farm is to involve the local citizens and support the regional value chain. This successful idea for onshore wind farms was transferred to the Butendiek project. More than 8,000 private investors, a large part coming from the region, engaged in the project until 2001.
2001
- Application conference at the BSH
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July 2001
Application conference at the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH)
At the application conference principal approval issues were clarified, and the status of the conducted and running investigations as well as the resulting reports were discussed.
2002
- Granting of approval
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18 December 2002
Granting of approval– Butendiek is the second project in Germany being approved
With the approval the project achieved the legal certainty to continue with the planning. High numbers of porpoises and loons that were detected during the environmental investigations result in nature conservation interests. These interests are taken into account in the imposed conditions of the approval in such way that the objects of protection will not be affected.
2007
- Airtricity/Scottish and Southern Energy aquire Butendiek
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April 2007
Airtricity/Scottish and Southern Energy aquire Butendiek
The project restarted negotiations with potential partners after significant improvements of the political and financial general conditions were established. The aim was to get a general partner for the financing and realisation of the project. Airtricity, a company from Ireland specialised in renewable energy has been awarded the contract. In 2008 Airitricity was acquired by Scottisch and Southern Energy.
2009
- Geotechnical main investigation takes place
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April – June 2009
Geotechnical main investigation takes place
Within the framework of the approval procedures the applicants are required to provide proof for the installations’ structural safety. The approval authority issues the technical standard for the required geological and geotechnical investigations. 83 locations have been examined up to a depth of 60m in the project area in this period. One further location has been examined due to an adjustment in 2011.
2010
- wpd takes over Butendiek
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September 2010
wpd takes over Butendiek
The wpd group has acquired 100% of the shares of Butendiek Offshore Windpark Holding GmbH, Hamburg, from SSE Renewables Germany Holdings GmbH, Hamburg.
2011
- EPCI contracts, assurance and grid connection
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August/September 2011
Signing of the four main supply contracts and the turbine maintenance contract
All contracts are EPCI contracts (Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation):
Foundation – Ballast Nedam (Civil construction company, Netherlands)
Turbines – Siemens (Germany)
Cables – Visser & Smit Marine Contracting (Submarine cable installation company, Netherlands)
Substation –Joint Venture with Cofely Fabricom GDF Suez, CG, Iemants and GeoSea (Belgium)November 2011
Granting of the unconditional assurance of grid connection by the transmission system operator Tennet
As per § 17 par. 2a Energiewirtschaftsgesetz (EnWG 2005) the responsible transmission system operator is obligated to connect offshore wind turbines to the grid. The position paper of the Federal Network Agency specifies this obligation for grid connection.
After fulfilling the required 4th criterion of the position paper (binding contracts on the order of wind turbines and other major components), the project received the grid connection approval.
2012
- Signing of 100% of shares by investors
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December 2012
Signing of 100% of shares by investors
New shareholders of the OWP Butendiek GmbH & Co. KG are: Siemens Financial Services, Marguerite Fund, Industriens Pension and PKA and wpd. Additional to its role as shareholder wpd remains responsible for the project management.
2013
- Financial close
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February 2013
Financial close including debt financing
The total investment volume is approx. € 1.3 bn. Project debt financing has been arranged by KfW IPEX, UniCredit and Bremer Landesbank, in a consortium with European Investment Bank, KfW Förderbank, Denmark’s Eksport Kredit Fonden and further commercial banks including BayernLB, HeLaBa, HSH Nordbank, ING, Rabo Bank and SEB. Aside from wpd, the group of investors is composed of renowned industrial partners as well as long-term oriented institutional investors, namely Marguerite Fund, Siemens Financial Services, Industriens Pension and PKA.