First turbine for Germany’s largest offshore wind farm now in place

The first wind turbine for He Dreiht, Germany’s largest offshore wind farm currently under construction, was placed on Monday.

He Dreiht represents the first use case for Vestas' 15MW wind turbine, its largest model. When the wind is blowing, a single rotation of the rotor is supposedly enough to supply four households with electricity for a day.

The 64 wind turbines will have a total output of 960 MW, to produce enough electricity to supply the equivalent of 1.1 million households.

“EnBW has been planning, building and operating offshore wind farms in Germany and Europe for over 15 years," said Michael Class, Head of Generation Portfolio Development at EnBW.

"EnBW He Dreiht is our largest offshore project to date and is being built without state funding. It will play a key role in helping us to achieve our goal of significantly increasing installed output from renewable energies from the current figure of 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030.”

European wind farm projects tend to be supported both directly, through subsidies, or indirectly via guaranteed minimum power prices.

He Dreiht is being built roughly 85 kilometres northwest of Borkum and about 110 kilometres west of Helgoland. More than 500 employees will work on this large construction site in the middle of the sea at peak times.

Over 60 ships are involved in the construction of the wind farm. The 64 foundations were installed last year.

A partner consortium made up of Allianz Capital Partners, AIP and Norges Bank Investment Management owns the remaining 49.9 percent of the shares in He Dreiht.