German Trailblazer Beats Forecast Annual Yield

Alpha Ventus, Germany’s first offshore wind farm, generated 242.176 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2015, surpassing the forecast yield in its fifth year of operation by 3.1 percent.

The power generated by the 60 MW Alpha Ventus is equivalent to the annual power consumption of 69,000 average households.

The wind farm, jointly owned by EWE, E.ON and Vattenfall, achieved an availability of 93.4 percent in 2015.

December 2015 was one of the most productive months for Alpha Ventus since its commissioning in early 2010. The record is currently held by December 2011 when the wind farm generated 36.7 GWh, only 0.6 GWh more than in 2015.

EWE, E.ON and Vattenfall established the “Deutsche Offshore-Testfeld und Infrastruktur GmbH & Co. KG“ (DOTI) in order to build and operate the Alpha Ventus wind farm, situated some 45 kilometres off the coast of Borkum.

The wind farm comprises twelve 5-megawatt class wind power turbines: six Adwen M5000 turbines and six Senvion 5M turbines.

“With Alpha Ventus we demonstrate the huge potential of offshore wind power year after year. The 5-year average amounts to 4,120 full load hours – twice as high as onshore installations. Alpha Ventus will pass the milestone of 1.5 terawatt hours of offshore-generated energy very likely in February 2016. The operators EWE, E.ON and Vattenfall have clearly achieved a great deal, and given the expansion of offshore wind power in the German Bight a major boost with the Alpha Ventus follow-up projects,” said Wilfried Hube, CEO of the operating company DOTI.