Vattenfall is bringing 200 MW of balancing capacity from the 416 MW Veja Mate offshore wind farm in the German North Sea to the electricity market. The company says this is the largest amount of balancing power ever made available by an offshore wind farm.
The wind farm underwent a prequalification process within the control area of the transmission system operator (TSO) TenneT.
Balancing power helps transmission system operators maintain the grid frequency at 50 hertz when electricity generation and consumption deviate from forecasts. Operators can call on reserve capacity to correct these imbalances and keep the system stable.
In 2022, Ørsted’s Borkum Riffgrund 1 became the country’s first offshore wind farm to provide balancing power. RWE prequalified 60 MW from Amrumbank West for secondary reserve last year, while Trianel’s Borkum I began supplying around 70 MW of negative secondary control reserve in July 2026.
Located approximately 95 kilometres northwest of Borkum Island in the German North Sea, Veja Mate comprises 67 Siemens SWT-6.0-154 wind turbines and was commissioned in May 2017.
The offshore wind farm is owned by a consortium comprising Commerz Real, Ingka Group, KGAL Group and wpd invest, with Vattenfall acting as the direct marketer, selling and optimising the electricity generated by Veja Mate.
Vattenfall already provides balancing services through other generation assets, including pumped-storage hydropower plants with a combined capacity of 2.7 GW. The company says it is also working to qualify additional renewable energy assets, including offshore wind farms, solar parks combined with large-scale batteries and standalone battery storage, for participation in the balancing market.