Huge New Wind Farm On The Way

Juist island, north of which the wind farm will be built. Photo: Wikipedia

RWE Innogy has announced that, with its purchase of ENOVA Energieanlagen GmbH it now also owns the rights to develop the North Sea Windpower 3 offshore wind farm in Germany. The project will now be known as Innogy Nordsee 1. This 960 MW project will be the first open-sea wind farm of its kind.

The timetable, location, costs are as follows:

Construction Could Begin 2010, Completed 2015

Innogy Nordsee 1 will be built 40 kilometers north of the island of Juist and cover an area of sea about 150 square kilometers in size. Innogy expects to receive permitting approval later in 2009, with construction beginning in 2010. For RWE, the construction of Innogy Nordsee 1 is a clear commitment to help achieve the climate protection targets of the German government and the European Union. The wind farm will avoid approximately 2.6 million tons of CO2 annually.

It will also make an important contribution towards achieving RWE’s ambitious renewables targets. By 2012, RWE wants to have secured a power generation capacity of around 4,500 MW on the basis of renewables. Through these investments, the Group is aiming to avoid up to 15 million tons of CO2 per year. The core market is Europe.

The first turbines are expected to produce power a year later; and, the entire wind farm is scheduled for completion in 2015. Total costs for the project are expected to run to €2.8 billion ($3.7 billion).

Based on wind speeds in the region, project developers expect the wind farm to produce over 3 TWh of electricity when fully completed.