In the coming years, Vattenfall intends to build Nordlicht I, a state-of-the-art offshore wind farm with an installed capacity of 980 megawatts without government subsidies. Subject to the company's final investment decision, Nordlicht I can go online by the end of 2027. In continuous operation, the wind farm can then produce an amount of electricity per year that corresponds to the annual consumption of more than one million average German households.
The construction area for Nordlicht I is around 85 kilometres north of the island of Borkum. As part of the bidding process for this area, Vattenfall asserted its so-called right of entry in autumn 2022.
The responsible project manager at Vattenfall, Matthias Buko, says about the naming of Nordlicht I: “The name N-7.2 was a standardized identifier for the project area. Traditionally, offshore wind projects have been given individual names. Accordingly, the project team decided early on that the wind farm to be built on this area needed a new and more personal name. The new name refers to the location of the wind farm in the North Sea. Also the fossil-free electricity produced there is symbolically in harmony with the generation of light,” Buko says.
Pioneer in offshore wind in Germany
Vattenfall today operates around 4.2 gigawatts of onshore and offshore wind power with a combined annual production of 11.3 terawatt hours. In Germany, Vattenfall is one of the pioneers in the field of offshore wind. In 2010, the company put the first German offshore wind farm "alpha ventus" into operation with its partners E.ON and EWE. In addition, Vattenfall operates the offshore wind farms "DanTysk" (in operation since 2014) and "Sandbank" (in operation since 2016) in Germany, in which Stadtwerke München has a stake. Together, Sandbank and DanTysk supply around 700,000 households with electricity every year.
Facts Nordlicht I
- First power: 2027
- Capacity?: 980 MW
- Surface?: 52.63 km²
- Distance to shore?: 96 km
- Water depth?: 37-39 m
By Lutz Wiese
