From 2025 and 2026 respectively, RWE’s Nordsee Ost and Amrumbank West offshore wind farms will supply eleven German industrial customers and one large municipal utility with green electricity. The relevant agreements were signed between RWE Supply & Trading and Badische Stahlwerke, Freudenberg group, Infraserv Höchst, Mainova, Messer, Schott, Telefónica, Verallia, Vodafone, Wacker as well as ZF.
The majority of the contracts will run for a term of ten years. Depending on customer requirements they provide for direct purchase (as produced), scheduled delivery with wind farm profile (as nominated), or delivery structured as a continuous electricity load (baseload delivery). Electricity produced at the two offshore wind farms was already sold based on PPAs to Deutsche Bahn in 2019, 2020 and 2021. With these most recent purchase agreements, all of the electricity generated by these wind farms from 2026 has been sold under contract.
Both wind farms currently receive funding under the Renewables Act (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz, EEG), which is set to expire from 2024 and 2025 respectively. The sale of the electricity took place as part of a structured tendering process, in which the contracts were negotiated and concluded with the respective customers in parallel.
Ulf Kerstin, CCO of RWE Supply & Trading: “The great interest of our customers in these power purchase agreements shows how important carbon-free electricity has become for the German industry. With these long-term contracts we are ensuring planning security for both parties and helping Germany to remain competitive as a location for production. We are preparing to market further electricity from offshore wind farms that are currently under development to supply industrial customers with high-quality green electricity.”
Both wind farms are located around 60 km off the German North Sea coast and have been producing electricity since 2015. The Nordsee Ost wind farm has a total of 48 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 295 megawatts. Amrumbank West has 80 wind turbines with an installed capacity of 302 megawatts.
Images for media use (credit: RWE) are available at the RWE Media Centre.