Ørsted’s German Offshore Wind Farms Breeze Past 10 TWh Mark

Ørsted’s offshore wind farms in the German North Sea have produced and delivered over 10 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity since the first wind farm started producing in February 2015.

The Danish energy company owns and operates four wind farms in the German North Sea with a combined capacity of nearly 1.4GW.

“With our four wind farms alone, we have been able to feed more than 10 billion kilowatt hours of electricity from offshore wind power into the grid since 2015. A great milestone, which shows how powerful this technology is for the power production of renewable energy in Germany,” said Volker Malmen, Ørsted’s Managing Director in Germany.

The 312MW Borkum Riffgrund 1 wind farm produced first power in February 2015. The 582MW Gode Wind 1 and 2 started producing in 2017, followed by the 465MW Borkum Riffgrund 2 in August 2018.

In the 2017 and the 2018 offshore wind auctions, Ørsted was awarded contracts for five further projects in the German North Sea with a combined capacity of around 1.14GW. The wind farms are expected to be commissioned in 2024 and 2025.

2030 Offshore Wind Target

Looking beyond 2025, Malmen has called on the German authorities to increase the offshore wind target from 15GW to at least 20GW by 2030.

“It is important that Germany stays tuned and increases the expansion targets for our industry. Over 20GW by 2030 are possible and necessary for achieving the climate goals,” said Malmen.

The increased target would translate to EUR 7 billion rise in sales by 2035 and around 9,500 new jobs, the developer said.