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Offshore Wind Farm „Borkum Riffgrund 3“ With More Than 900 MW Record Capacity Installed - New Paths And Innovations

Fredericia, Denmark - The expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany will continue to gather pace in 2025 with the planned addition of around 1,800 MW of offshore wind power capacity.

In addition to EnbW's He Dreiht offshore wind farm (900 MW), the commissioning of Ørsted's Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm (913 MW) is planned for the current year, which has reached a milestone with the installation of the last wind turbine.

The construction of the Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm in the North Sea with a new record capacity is also associated with economic and technical innovations. Ørsted's wind power is sold entirely via long-term supply contracts (CPPA) without EEG feed-in tariffs. Thanks to the 66 kV connection concept, this wind farm is the first to manage without an offshore substation (OSS) at sea.

Borkum Riffgrund 3: Last offshore wind turbine from Siemens Gamesa installed

In just six months, Ørsted, together with the two companies Cadeler and Seaway7, has installed a total of 83 offshore wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa (11 MW per turbine). Ørsted announced that the record-breaking project will be the largest wind farm in Germany to date, with an installed capacity of 913 megawatts (MW). Borkum Riffgrund 3 is owned equally by Ørsted and Nuveen Infrastructure.

Jörg Kubitza, Managing Director of Ørsted in Germany, says: „The installation of the last turbine in what is by far our largest offshore wind farm in Germany is a great success - thanks in particular to our colleagues for their commitment in the North Sea. With the installed capacity of Borkum Riffgrund 3, we have now reached a total of almost 2.5 gigawatts and emphasise our role as the largest operator of offshore wind energy.“

Economy: Ørsted supplies wind power to industrial and technology customers

Borkum Riffgrund 3 is the first offshore wind farm to be awarded a tender without EEG participation. Ørsted was awarded the contracts in the 2017 and 2018 offshore wind tenders at a price of zero euros feed-in tariff per MWh - a first for offshore wind.

The realisation of the project is primarily made possible by long-term power purchase agreements (CPPAs) that Ørsted has concluded with industrial and technology customers. 786 megawatts of the total capacity will be purchased by the companies Amazon (350 MW), BASF (186 MW), Covestro (100 MW), Energie-Handels-Gesellschaft/REWE Group (100 MW) and Google (50 MW) once the wind farm is commercially operational.

The terms of the respective contracts range from 10 to 25 years. According to Ørsted, the agreements create long-term price security for both the project developer Ørsted and the customers.

Technology: Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm without transformer station at sea for the first time

The Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm utilises the latest technology. Previously, an additional offshore substation (OSS) had to be built in which the electricity generated by all the offshore wind turbines was brought together and converted to a high-voltage level.

The new connection concept, on the other hand, provides for a direct connection of the wind turbines to the offshore converter platform DolWin epsilon of the transmission system operator Tennet using 66 kV connection cables. This not only minimises the costs, but also the construction time and the impact on the marine ecosystem. The DolWin epsilon converter platform is scheduled to be installed in 2025.

The Riffgrund 3 wind farm is expected to be fully commissioned in Q1 2026.

About offshore wind energy in Germany

A total of 1,637 offshore wind turbines with a capacity of 9,215 MW will be in operation in Germany at the end of 2024. Electricity generation from offshore wind energy climbed to 25.6 billion kWh in 2024 (2023: 23.5 billion kWh) according to data from the transmission system operators (as of 15 January 2025).

After the market for offshore wind energy reached its low point in 2021 without a single offshore wind turbine being commissioned in Germany, a trend reversal began in 2022 with the construction of RWE's Kaskasi offshore wind farm.

In 2024, the offshore wind farms Gode Wind 3 (253 MW) and Baltic Eagle (476 MW) with a combined capacity of around 729 MW went into operation. According to current plans, the offshore wind farms Borkum Riffgrund 3 (913 MW) and He Dreiht (900 MW) with a combined capacity of over 1,800 MW will go into operation in 2025.

According to the Wind Energy at Sea Act (WindSeeG), offshore wind power capacity in Germany is set to increase to 30,000 MW (30 GW) by 2030.



Source: IWR Online, 15 Jan 2025

 


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