Vattenfall has named its new offshore wind project in Germany Nordlicht I (Northern Light I). The project has been referred to as N-7.2 so far, after the government’s identifier of the development area.
The developer secured the area by exercising its step-in-rights for the N-7.2 zone in the German North Sea after RWE won the tender with a zero-subsidy bid. Vattenfall, which plans to build a 980 MW offshore wind farm at the site, will also construct and operate it without subsidies.
The Nordlicht I project site is located around 85 kilometres north of the island of Borkum and, subject to Vattenfall’s final investment decision, the offshore wind farm will go online by the end of 2027.
With a generation capacity of 980 MW, Nordlicht I can produce enough electricity to meet the annual requirement of more than one million average German households.
The offshore wind farm’s name represents both its location in the North Sea and the fossil-free electricity that it will produce, symbolically linked to the generation of light, according to Matthias Buko, project manager at Vattenfall.
In Germany, Vattenfall put its first offshore wind farm, alpha ventus, into operation in 2010, together with its partners E.ON and EWE. The company also operates the offshore wind farms DanTysk (in operation since 2014) and Sandbank (in operation since 2016) together with Stadtwerke München.