RWE has been awarded three projects in the German Federal Network Agency’s auction for onshore wind. The company will renew existing wind farms in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia and replace them with modern turbines. This so-called repowering will almost double the installed capacity of the wind farms – from 37.4 to 73.2 MW. Thanks to the new turbines with longer rotor blades, electricity production at these sites can even be almost tripled – larger rotors have a much larger harvesting area to capture wind.
“For the energy transition to succeed, Germany needs new wind and solar farms up and running quickly and must also focus on modernising older sites. On average, modern turbines produce two to three times more electricity with fewer turbines. This shows the potential of repowering. RWE is therefore naturally involved: both in new construction and in the modernisation of older wind turbines,” stated Katja Wünschel, CEO Onshore Wind and Solar Europe and Australia, RWE Renewables.
More green electricity thanks to new plants at existing sites
Two of the three wind farms are located in Lower Saxony, Germany: a total of 17 wind turbines in Lesse and Barbecke (Salzgitter and Peine districts) with a total output of 30.6 MW will be replaced by 11 turbines with a total of 61.8 MW. This requires a new transformer station, which RWE plans to build in the municipality of Söhlde. Construction of both wind farms is scheduled to start in Autumn. After commissioning, the projects will have the capacity to supply approximately 43 500 households with green electricity annually.
In the Paderborn district, RWE is modernising its Elisenhof wind farm. The construction of the foundation for this repowering project, with a total output of 11.4 MW (old turbines: MW), is to take place shortly. Once commissioned, the North Rhine-Westphalian wind farm will have the capacity to generate enough green electricity to meet the needs of 5500 households.
Thanks to the new, powerful wind turbine, electricity production at this site can be more than doubled.
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