Utility giant RWE has taken the investment decision to build two offshore wind farms with a total capacity of 1.6 gigawatts (GW) in the German North Sea, Germany's biggest power producer said on Monday.
RWE took the investment decision for its Nordseecluster project, which will be located about 50 kilometers (31 miles) north of the island of Juist and will be implemented in two phases.
The construction of Nordseecluster A with a capacity of 660 MW is due to start next year with full commissioning planned for early 2027, while the construction of Nordseecluster B with a capacity of 900 MW is expected to begin in 2027, with full commissioning to take place in early 2029, the German company said.
Suppliers of the main components have already been selected for the cluster as a whole, RWE added.
"RWE will use the green electricity generated from the wind farms to support its industrial customers on the path to decarbonisation with customised energy solutions. These customers increasingly include operators of AI data centres," the German firm said in a statement.
RWE has been shutting down coal capacity and boosting its renewables offering in recent years.
RWE said at the end of last year that it plans to invest $60 billion (55 billion euros) worldwide by 2030 in renewable energy, batteries, flexible generation, and hydrogen projects.
After the end of the 2023/2024 winter, RWE shut down permanently five coal power plant units in Germany, removing 2,100 megawatts (MW) of lignite capacity permanently from the grid. RWE has already decommissioned 12 lignite-fired power plant units with a total output of 4,200 MW since the end of 2020 and is confident it will complete its coal phase-out by 2030.
Last week, RWE signed two 15-year Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with Microsoft Corporation, under which Microsoft will purchase clean electricity from two new RWE onshore wind farms in Texas.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
Tsvetana is a writer for Oilprice.com with over a decade of experience writing for news outlets such as iNVEZZ and SeeNews. More