Vestas has signed a firm contract and conditional order with EnBW for the delivery of wind turbines for the He Dreiht offshore wind farm, and has contracted Cadeler to install 64 of its 15 MW units at the project site in the German part of the North Sea.
The contract with Cadeler is also a conditional agreement, subject to the project reaching financial close, which is expected in 2023.
Installation is planned to begin in the second quarter of 2025, with full commissioning anticipated for the fourth quarter of the same year. Cadeler said it would use one of its two O-class vessels , which will feature a new crane with a lifting capacity of 1,600 tonnes at a radius of 40 metres, to install the He Dreiht wind turbines.
EnBW pre-selected Vestas’s new 15 MW model with a 236-metre rotor diametre for its zero-subsidy project last year and was the first developer to do so.
“Only with state-of-the-art and cost-efficient technology we can realise offshore projects like He Dreiht without subsidies. The turbines from Vestas make a significant contribution to this. Offshore is not only technically demanding, but also requires solid forward-looking forecasts, knowledge of the market and the willingness take entrepreneurial risks before a final investment decision has been made”, said Michael Class , Head of Generation Portfolio Development at EnBW.
“With a swept area of 43,742 m2 and a capacity factor of over 60 percent from the 115.5m blades, the V236-15.0 MW turbine will deliver industry-leading park performance for EnBW at He Dreiht. Depending on site-specific conditions a single V236-15.0 MW turbine can produce 80 GWh per year, enough to power around 20,000 European households” , Vestas stated in a press release on 7 June.
The offshore wind farm, to be built some 90 kilometers northwest of the island of Borkum and about 110 kilometres west of Heligoland, has a grid connection capacity of 900 MW and an excess capacity of 60 MW in order to use the connection capacity as efficiently as possible even when production is lower.
Last month, EnBW selected the compatriot offshore foundations manufacturer, Steelwind Nordenham , to fabricate and deliver the monopiles for He Dreiht, which will be installed by Heerema Marine Contractors .