Double success for RWE in onshore wind power infrastructure auction: The German Federal Network Agency has awarded it the Grevenbroich wind farm in North Rhine-Westphalia and the Bartelsdorf 2 project in Lower Saxony. These positive decisions will help RWE to accelerate its expansion of renewables in Germany. This year alone, the company is investing about €60 million into three new onshore construction projects, including Sandbostel-Bevern in addition to Grevenbroich and Bartelsdorf 2.
In specific terms, three Nordex units are being constructed at the location in the Rhenish mining region, accounting for 5.7 megawatts (MW) each. The scheduled start date for the Grevenbroich wind farm, with a total installed capacity of 17.1 MW, is as early as the second quarter of 2022, and it is expected to go into operation at the end of this year.
In the rural district of Rotenburg (Wümme) between Hamburg and Bremen, RWE will add five Nordex turbines to its existing wind farm Bartelsdorf, taking the total to 21. This will give the wind farm an additional 28.5 MW of capacity. The start of construction in this case is planned for the summer of 2022, with commissioning in 2023. A special aspect in this case is that two of the newly constructed units will pass to Bürgergesellschaft Heidland Wind GmbH & Co. KG, a local citizens’ cooperative, while the others will be operated by RWE. This is one way in which RWE is continuing its successful collaboration with local partners.
Sustainable growth to 2030
Both onshore projects are part of RWE’s “Growing Green” strategy. By the end of the decade, the company will have invested €50 billion gross in its core business, expanding its green generation capacity to 50 gigawatts. In Germany alone, it aims to invest up to €15 billion gross in offshore and onshore wind, solar, batteries, flexible generation and hydrogen. To further maintain the pace of expansion, RWE has advertised 200 new positions for the development of onshore wind and utility-scale photovoltaic plants in Germany.