Markbygden Wind Farm

Markbygden Wind Farm will be a series of interconnected wind farms in the Markbygden area west of Piteå, in northern Sweden. The project will be built by 2020, and will have a capacity of up to 4 gigawatts (GW). Svevind owns 75% of the project; Enercon has a 25% share and will build a wind tower production plant in the region, as well as a local office for service and maintenance. If built out, the 55 billion kronor (€5.1 billion, US$6.9 billion) project will be the largest wind farm in Europe.

The wind farm will cover some 450 square kilometres, comprising 1,101 wind turbines. It will use Enercon E-101 (3.0 MW) and Enercon E-126 (7.5 MW) turbines, and is expected to produce up to 12 terawatt-hours (TW·h) of electricity per year (i.e. an average power of up to 1.4 GW). The latter model (Enercon E-126) is the largest in the world, with an overall height of 198 m and a rotor diameter of 126 m.

The project received the approval of the Norrbotten County authorities in April 2009. On 4 March 2010 the Swedish Government decided to permit Markbygden Vind AB to build and run up to 1,101 wind turbines of a maximum height of 200 metres in the Markbygden area of Piteå Municipality.

As of July 2010, after a call for tender, a specialised environmental impact studies group has started all nature issues for the first phase of the grand windfarm in order to get final approval. This phase is called "Markbygden Etapp 1". Start of building works is foreseen during 2012, as the final approval has been given on 19 December 2011. Etapp 1 involves about 1000 MW nominal power, 314 wind turbines, and has to reach a 2.8 TW·h/year production, Considering the given parameters (rated power and rotor diameter) it concerns two turbine types: the Enercon 3.05 MW E-101 turbine, and the Enercon 7.58 MW E-126 turbine.