In an announcement on acquiring a further stake in the German Butendiek offshore wind farm earlier this month, Ireland-based Greencoat Renewables said that the project had signed one of the largest renewable energy Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) in Germany. It has now been revealed the electricity under that PPA will be used to produce green hydrogen.
The Butendiek offshore wind farm, located in the North Sea and operational since 2015, has an installed capacity of 288 MW and produces about 1,200 GWh of electricity per year.
On 2 October, Greencoat Renewables said Butendiek recently entered into a new PPA with a “large multinational” for 62.5 per cent of the total output, equivalent to around 700 GWh per year, for a period of six and a half years.
In a press release from 31 October, Pexapark, a software and advisory company which supported the OWP Butendiek consortium in signing the PPA, said the offshore wind farm would “provide electricity to a green hydrogen facility operated by a global leader in the energy industry.”
The operator of the green hydrogen production facility, who is the off-taker under the agreement, has been left unnamed by both Greencoat Renewables and Pexapark.
According to Pexapark, Butendiek’s new PPA is one of the first green PPAs for hydrogen production in Germany. The agreement is also expected to meet the standards set under the EU Delegated Acts on green hydrogen that were approved in July 2023 and to help the EU’s goal of producing 10 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030, the company said.
The 288 MW offshore wind farm, which features 80 3.6 MW Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, is owned by a consortium comprising Wpd, Schroders Greencoat, Ewz, Industriens Pension, and Itochu/CITIC Pacific.