FILE PHOTO: The logo of Spanish power company Iberdrola is seen on top of Iberdrola's main office building in Madrid October 6, 2014. REUTERS/Susana Vera/File Photo LONDON (Reuters) - *Iberdrola Renewables Offshore will invest 1 billion euros (878.5 billion pounds) in developing two offshore wind farm projects in the Baltic Sea after winning 486 megawatts (MW) of capacity in a recent auction, managing director Jonathan Cole said. *A final investment decision for the Baltic Eagle and Wikinger Sud projects is due in late 2019 or early 2020, with production set to commence in 2022, an aggressive development timeline versus some North Sea projects due in 2025, Cole said. *The 476 MW Baltic Eagle project received a minimum guaranteed power price from the German regulator of 64 euros per megawatt/hour, while the 10 MW Wikinger Sud has no guaranteed price, Cole said. *Baltic Eagle will be 12-13 nautical miles from the currently under-construction 350 MW Wikinger wind farm, enabling cost savings through pooling of infrastructure. *The auction offering 1.6 gigawatts was four to five times over-subscribed, Cole said. *The Baltic Eagle guaranteed price underscores the falling cost of offshore wind. Scottish Power Renewables’ 714 MW East Anglia ONE Offshore Wind Farm in the southern North Sea, more benign than the Baltic Sea, set the cost of electricity at 119 pounds per MW/hour in 2015. Reporting by Oleg Vukmanovic; Editing by Adrian Croft
Spanish utility company Iberdrola is to spend a total of €1bn ($1.21bn) on two new offshore wind farms. The company won bids for 496 MW of new offshore capacity in the recent German federal energy auction, which allocated a total of 1.6 GW and was four or five times oversubscribed. The Baltic Eagle and Wikinger Sud projects could commence production in 2022, with a final investment decision due to be taken by the company late next year or in early 2020, a relatively aggressive timeline compared with other projects in the region.