The Karlsruhe-based German energy company EnBW has completed construction of its largest offshore wind project, He Dreiht, located approximately 110 kilometers west of the island of Helgoland in the North Sea.
The wind farm, which carries the Low German name for 'it turns', consists of 64 wind turbines with a hub height of 142 meters.
Installed capacity of the He Dreiht wind farm
Most of the turbines are already connected to the grid, and the wind farm is expected to be fully operational by late summer. The project is connected to the grid via an offshore converter station and two high-voltage cables that run more than 120 kilometers underwater and 110 kilometers on land.
EnBW invested approximately 2.4 billion euros in the project. The company stated that He Dreiht is among the largest energy transition projects in Europe and, on a purely arithmetical basis, will supply 1.1 million households with renewable energy.
Technical specifications and turbine damage
Each rotor revolution of the He Dreiht turbines sweeps an area of 43,742 square meters, an area equivalent to six football fields.
In late July, a 20-meter-long part of a rotor blade broke off at the site and drifted in the sea. EnBW stated that the turbine manufacturer, Vestas, is currently investigating the damage to the rotor blade.
Economic challenges and market shifts
He Dreiht is one of the first subsidy-free wind farms and does not receive a feed-in tariff under Germany's Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). A large portion of the electricity generated is already secured through long-term agreements with customers including Google, Bosch, Salzgitter, Deutsche Bahn, and Fraport, the operator of Frankfurt Airport.
The project nearly doubles EnBW's offshore wind capacity from 976 MW and serves as the company's fifth offshore wind farm.
EnBW CEO Georg Stamatelopoulos has cited rising costs, noting that wind turbines, logistics, and cables have become 30 to 40 percent more expensive compared to five years ago. He described the situation as 'dramatically worsened' and called on the German government to lower its wind power expansion targets in the North and Baltic Seas. 'We must keep affordability in view,' Stamatelopoulos said, proposing: 'Let's first build 55 gigawatts, and then we'll see.'
The German government's legal targets are to expand offshore wind capacity to at least 30 GW by 2030 and 70 GW by 2045. According to the German foundation Stiftung Offshore-Windenergie, 1,764 offshore wind turbines with around 10.8 GW of capacity were in operation in Germany at the end of June, with current plans extending to 2035 comprising around 41 GW of total capacity.
The company previously decided in January to withdraw from two offshore wind projects, Morgan and Mona, in the Irish Sea due to a lack of profitability and the fact that they no longer received state support in the UK. This withdrawal resulted in an unscheduled impairment of 1.2 billion euros for EnBW.
Offshore wind is a domestic, renewable energy source.
Heydecker added that offshore wind can generate large amounts of electricity over many hours per year, contributing to the security of supply and the decarbonization of the electricity system.
