International chemical company LyondellBasell has agreed to purchase a portion of electricity generated by the Ecowende wind farm in the Dutch North Sea.
LyondellBasell signed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Eneco, the energy company building the wind farm in the coming years together with its partners 53 kilometres off the coast of IJmuiden in the Dutch part of the North Sea.
LyondelBasell will get some three per cent of Ecowende’s total capacity of 760 MW for the next 15 years from 2027 onwards. This amounts to around 103 gigawatt hours of green wind power per year and is equal to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 28,500 European homes.
With this PPA, LyondellBasell surpasses its goal to procure at least half of its electricity from sustainable sources by 2030, Eneco said.
The company added that its goal is to be fully climate neutral in 2035 together with all its customers, and that PPAs such as this one with LyondellBasell allow it to keep making large investments in wind and solar farms, both onshore and offshore.
According to Eneco, Ecowende will be the most sustainable offshore wind farm to date and is going to be built in harmony with nature.
Construction will start next year and the wind farm is scheduled to be fully operational by late 2026. The Ecowende wind farm – on Hollandse Kust (west) lot VI – will cover about three per cent of the Dutch electricity demand.
Shell and Eneco secured the development rights for Hollandse Kust West VI in December 2022. Earlier this year, Japan’s Chubu acquired a 30 per cent stake in the project from Eneco. Following the acquisition, Shell now owns 60 per cent of the project, Chubu 30 per cent, and Eneco 10 per cent.