As part of the company's major offshore wind energy developments, coming mostly from the 7.2 GW of capacity lined up as part of Round 3 offshore development in the UK, and an additional 2.8 GW of capacity planned around the world, Iberdrola Renovables has decided to create a wind division. This new business division will deal with the oncoming large scale developments and will be incorporated into ScottishPower Renewables, headed by Keith Anderson.

Wind energy is one of the companies pricipal business areas for the future. A single large scale offshore wind project may have contributed to this greatly, the East Anglia Array, part of Round 3 UK offshore wind energy development, which Iberdrola is going to develop in collaboration with Vattenfall. The total capacity is going to be 7.2 GW, a represents a truly giant offshore project, even for a company the size of Iberdrola.

In addition to this mega-project, Iberdrola Renovables also has in its project pipeline several offshore wind energy projects in Europe (Germany, Spain and the UK), which total about 2.5 GW of capacity. This total includes about 1700 MW in the UK, 500 MW of which are to be installed at West of Duddon Sands, beginning in 2012.

In Spain, Iberdrola has submitted applications for zones under reserve for feasibility studies, which are all necessary steps to go through, prior to obtaining permits for a total of six projects near the coast of Cádiz, Castellón and Huelva.

Financially, Iberdrola is making major investments in the wind energy sector worldwide, as we've covered recently, totalling in about EUR 9 billion for wind energy.

[source: Iberdrola Renovables]