Full wind power ahead

In Heroldstatt, our predecessor company Energie-Versorgung Schwaben (EVS) puts the first wind turbine into operation: It has a conventional three-blade rotor. Another plant followed in 1990: The newly developed Darrieus prototype with a vertical rotary axis. It did not become established – due to its lower electrical output.

At the beginning of the 1990s, wind energy experienced its first upswing, supported by state subsidies. However, a lack of public acceptance and planning and supply security make it difficult for the industry. The first Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) comes into force in 2000 - an important step for the energy transition. More and more wind farms are being built in Germany - such as our plants in Westerheim, Schnittlingen, Eppenrod and Düsedau in 2001 and 2002.

Today, numerous EnBW wind farms are located in the north of Germany – where the most wind can be harvested. Our Buchholz wind farm in the Heidekreis district of Lower Saxony has been in operation since 2009. It originally consisted of 18 turbines, but was expanded to a total of 24 wind turbines in two further construction phases in 2012 and 2017. This makes it one of the largest EnBW wind farms.

Together with the Turkish company Borusan, we establish the joint venture "Borusan EnBW Enerji" based in Istanbul – and thus enter the international wind power business. Projects in countries such as France, Sweden and Great Britain follow.

22,200 wind turbines were in operation in Germany in 2011, contributing 8 percent to the energy mix. Following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Germany decided to accelerate its nuclear phase-out – and with it a comprehensive change in generation. One thing is certain: Wind power will play an important role in our energy mix in the future.

Aalen-Waldhausen, Bühlertann, Dünsbach, Goldboden-Winterbach, Rosenberg: These are just a few of our numerous wind farms that are being built over the next few years. This is often the case after long project planning and construction phases, as the requirements from environmental protection to monument protection are high. In Langenburg, we are testing innovative safety lighting with radar technology that only activates when aircraft are approaching: this reduces light smog.

A wind farm with two wind turbines is being built north of the municipality of Häusern in the district of Waldshut. The location is the Gießbacher Kopf, a forested mountain ridge which, due to its elevation of more than 1,000 meters, has a high wind potential. The wind farm is currently EnBW’s turbine at the highest altitude.

In the area of the Hanseatic town of Osterburg in Saxony-Anhalt, we are carrying out our first repowering at the Düsedau wind farm, which has been in existence since 2003. We are completely dismantling the five old wind turbines with a hub height of 70 meters and a total installed capacity of 7.5 megawatts and replacing them with four 169-meter-high turbines with a total installed capacity of 22.4 megawatts.

EnBW acquires the project rights to four offshore wind farms in the German North and Baltic Seas. This lays the foundation for EnBW Baltic 1 and 2 (Baltic Sear) as well as EnBW Hohe See and EnBW “He Dreiht” (North Sea).

We are writing offshore history and starting construction of the first commercial wind farm in Germany in the Baltic Sea, Baltic 1. On April 3 at around 10:00 a.m., the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel takes the almost 50-megawatt wind farm into operation. With 21 turbines, located around 16 kilometers north of the Darß/Zingst peninsula, we can cover the electricity needs of 50,000 households in one year. This allows us to save 167,000 tons of CO₂. And yet, who would have thought back then that we would continuously surpass every other one of our wind farm projects in terms of output and area from now on?

Just two years after the commissioning of Baltic 1, the foundations for a second wind farm in the Baltic Sea can already be seen: EnBW Baltic 2. In 2015, the former CEO Frank Mastiaux opens the wind farm - from the museum ship Gorch Fock 1. Baltic 2 generates five times more power than its predecessor and can produce electricity for around 340,000 households in purely mathematical terms.

At the same time, we turn our attention to the North Sea and secure another offshore project in 2014: EnBW Albatros, 105 kilometers north of Borkum and northwest of Helgoland.

In the first German tender for an offshore wind farm project, EnBW secures the contract for the EnBW He Dreiht (Low German: “It is turning”) wind farm in the North Sea. And it really is bringing more movement into the industry: The offshore wind farm is one of the first projects without feed-in subsidies – in other words, it will operate without state support, will not receive any feed-in tariffs under the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) and can be refinanced thanks to long-term purchase agreements.

Together with the US company Trident Winds, EnBW establishes a joint venture to realize the 650-1,000-megawatts Morro Bay offshore wind project on the Californian coast. It explores so-called floating technology: Floating offshore wind turbines will soon make foundations in the seabed obsolete. In this way, wind power can also be produced in the deeper waters of the US West Coast.

In order to increase the share of renewable energies in our generation capacity to 40 percent by 2020 – more than twice as much as in 2012 – EnBW is becoming active with two further offshore parks in the North Sea. Built at a cost of 2.2 billion euros, the total of 87 turbines covering an area of 53 square kilometers with a total output of more than 600 megawatts were connected to the grid at the beginning of 2020. That is enough for 710,000 households. EnBW Hohe See and EnBW Albatros are located close to each other and share a common infrastructure for maintenance and supply. EnBW opens offices in Taipei, New Jersey and Boston for international offshore projects.

With our Nezzy² project, we are continuing to investigate how wind turbines can be used in coastal regions with greater water depths. Together with partners, we are developing the prototype of a floating wind turbine. After an approximately 20-meter-high 1:10 scale model has been tested in the Baltic Sea, the full-size plant is finally to go into test operation off the coast of China.

EnBW is continuously expanding its offshore expertise and is also establishing its international reputation. Together with bp, we are awarded the contract for three wind farms with a total capacity of 5.9 gigawatts at land auctions in the UK. Project names: Mona, Morgan and Morven - in the Irish Sea and on the east coast of Scotland.

We are handing over our offshore activities in the USA to TotalEnergies, a French multi-energy company, in order to focus more strongly on the European market.

April 15, 2023 at 11:59 p.m.: Block II of the Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant (GKN II) is taken off the grid as planned, bringing the era of German nuclear power to an end. In the same year, we reaffirm our commitment to wind power with the final investment decision for EnBW He Dreiht. This means its construction phase can begin.

Our largest offshore project to date is scheduled to go into operation in 2025 with 64 wind turbines and a total output of 960 megawatts, which is expected to supply over one million households. This makes He Dreiht one of the leading energy transition projects in Europe; it will be able to produce more megawatts in itself than our four existing wind farms combined.

Around 30 kilometers off the coast of England, the two wind farms EnBW Mona and Morgan are expected to be taken into operation in the Irish Sea. Their total output is expected to be around 3 gigawatts.

Only a short time after the wind farms in the Irish Sea, EnBW is planning to develop the Scottish Sea in 2030. We expect the Morven wind farm to be taken into operation there in 2030, with construction scheduled for 2026/2027. Together, the three wind farms Morven, Mona and Morgan can supply around 6 million households with green electricity over a total area of 1,660 square kilometers.

According to the Frauenhofer Institute's forecast, Germany will obtain more than half (51.8 percent) of its electricity mix from wind power in 2050. We want to make a significant contribution to this with our offshore projects: Our wind energy capacities are set to increase to 4,000 megawatts by 2025 - this would not be possible without the EnBW offshore wind farms.