Vattenfall has acquired an offshore wind project consisting of up to 79 turbines in the German North Sea. The acquisition is in line with Vattenfall’s growth strategy to extensively expand its renewable energy production in the coming years. The Global Tech II wind project is located in the German North Sea some 85 kilometres north of the island of Borkum. The project is currently under development with up to 79 wind turbines in an area of 47 square kilometres.
“The acquisition underlines once more that our growth ambitions in wind are under full steam. As a company we are on a good way to reshape our generation portfolio towards more renewable energies in all our markets”, says Gunnar Groebler, Senior Vice President and Head of Business Area Wind at Vattenfall. The Global Tech II project is owned by Northern Energy Global Tech II, which Vattenfall has acquired as of 5 August. The seller is Erste Nordsee-Offshore-Holding, a joint subsidiary of Austrian STRABAG SE and indirectly Etanax GmbH. The parties have agreed to not disclose the purchase price.
“With Global Tech II we also send a signal that we strongly believe in the German market. In particular, we consider the new German tender system beneficial to the development of wind as it is more cost efficient, which will also lead to further acceptance of this effective and renewable power generation.”, says Gunnar Groebler. The realization of the project depends on obtaining a capacity contract in the tendering process with the first auction in March 2017 and the second auction in March 2018.
Vattenfall operates over 1,000 wind turbines with a total installed capacity of 2,000 megawatts (MW). In 2015 Vattenfall’s wind power production amounted to more than 6 TWh. By 2020 Vattenfall expects to double its wind capacity to 4,000 MW and invest more than SEK 50 billion, (approximately EUR 5 billion euros) in wind.
