German Offshore Wind Farms Up Production in 2018

German offshore wind farms generated over 18.8 Terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in 2018, an over 8% increase compared to 17.4TWh generated in the German North Sea and the Baltic Sea in 2017, according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. 

Arkona OWF. Source: E.ON

North Sea wind farms generated 16.6 TWh, with the remaining 2.2 TWh coming from the Baltic Sea.

The increase in production is most likely due to the newly added capacity through projects such as the 450MW Borkum Riffgrund 2 and the 396MW Merkur in the North Sea, and the 385MW Arkona and the 350MW Wikinger in the Baltic Sea, which started delivering electricity or were officially commissioned in 2018.

Offshore wind was one of the factors in Germany’s renewable energy sources providing over 40% of the country’s overall annual power production for the first time ever.

The renewable energy sources supplied 40.4% of Germany’s total electricity production in 2018.