Karlsruhe/Hamburg/Emden. A significant milestone has been reached in the construction of He Dreiht, currently Germany’s largest offshore wind farm: EnBW has installed all 64 foundations in the North Sea as scheduled. Heerema’s “Thialf”, one of the world’s largest floating cranes, drove the monopile foundations into the sea bed within approx. three months. The 70-meter-long steel foundations are 9.2 meters in diameter and weigh around 1,350 metric tons each. Transition pieces, which serve as a connecting element between the wind turbine tower and the monopile, were placed on top of the monopiles.
He Dreiht is being built roughly 85 kilometers northwest of Borkum and about 110 kilometers west of Helgoland. At peak times, more than 500 people work on this large construction site in the middle of the sea. Over 60 vessels are involved. The latest generation of Vestas wind turbines will be installed starting in spring 2025 with a capacity of 15 megawatts (MW) each. The wind farm is scheduled to start operation in late 2025 with a total capacity of 960 MW, which is sufficient to supply roughly 1.1 million households with electricity.
In the first offshore auction held in Germany, EnBW secured the contract for the project back in 2017. He Dreiht will not require any state subsidies.
