Full wind speed ahead

Our predecessor company Energie-Versorgung Schwaben (EVS) commissioned the first wind turbine in Heroldstatt. It had a conventional three-blade rotor. Another turbine followed in 1990 – the newly developed Darrieus prototype with a vertical axis. Due to its lower electrical output, it never really took off.

At the beginning of the 1990s, wind energy experienced its first upswing, supported by state subsidies. However, a lack of public acceptance and insufficient planning and supply security made it difficult for the industry. The first Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) came into force in 2000 – representing an important step for the energy transition. More and more wind farms were being built in Germany – such as our turbines 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 wind turbines, but was expanded to a total of 24 turbines in two further construction phases in 2012 and 2017. This makes it one of EnBW’s largest wind farms.

Together with the Turkish company Borusan, we established the joint venture “Borusan EnBW Enerji” based in Istanbul – and thus entered the international wind power business. Projects in countries such as France, Sweden and Great Britain followed.

A total of 22,200 wind turbines were in operation in Germany in 2011, accounting for eight percent of the energy mix. Following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Germany decided to accelerate its nuclear phaseout – and thus bring about a comprehensive change in generation. One thing was certain: Wind power would play an important role in our energy mix in the future.

Aalen-Waldhausen, Bühlertann, Dünsbach, Goldboden-Winterbach and Rosenberg were just some of the numerous wind farms that we built during this period, often after long project planning and construction phases. That’s because the environmental protection and monument protection requirements were so high. In Langenburg, we tested innovative safety lighting with radar technology that only activates when aircraft are approaching, thereby reducing light pollution.

A wind farm with two wind turbines was 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. It is currently EnBW’s highest-positioned wind farm.

In the area around the Hanseatic town of Osterburg in Saxony-Anhalt, we carried out our first repowering project at Düsedau wind farm, which was built in 2003. We completely dismantled the five old wind turbines with a hub height of 70 meters and a total installed output of 7.5 megawatts and replaced them with four 169-meter-high turbines with a total installed output of 22.4 megawatts.

We installed a battery storage system at a wind farm for the first time. The two wind turbines in Häusern were connected to the grid in September 2023. The associated storage system consists of 12 blocks, each with a footprint measuring 1.30 x 1.30 m and a height of 2.80 m. The system is supplemented by inverters, transformers and switchgear. The pilot project in Häusern makes it possible to divert up to 2.2 MW of the 6.9 MW generated into the storage system. Ten percent of the wind power generated by the two turbines runs through the storage system.

EnBW acquired the project rights to four offshore wind farms in Germany’s North and Baltic Seas, laying the foundations for EnBW Baltic 1 and 2 (Baltic Sea) as well as EnBW Hohe See and EnBW He Dreiht (North Sea).

We wrote offshore history when construction work began on Baltic 1, the first commercial wind farm in Germany’s Baltic Sea. On 3 April 2011 at around 10:00 a.m., the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel commissioned the almost 50-megawatt wind farm. With 21 turbines, located around 16 kilometers north of the Fischland-Darß-Zingst peninsula, we can cover the annual electricity needs of the equivalent of 50,000 households. This has enabled us to reduce carbon emissions by 167,000 metric tons. 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 then on?

Just two years after commissioning Baltic 1, the foundations for EnBW Baltic 2 were laid, a second wind farm in the Baltic Sea. The former CEO Frank Mastiaux opened the wind farm in 2015 – from the museum ship Gorch Fock 1. Baltic 2 generates five times more power than its predecessor and can produce electricity for the equivalent of around 340,000 households.

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

In the first German tender process for an offshore wind farm project, EnBW secured the contract for the EnBW He Dreiht (Low German for “It spins”) wind farm in the North Sea. And it really did get the industry moving: The offshore wind farm was one of the first projects realized without feed-in subsidies – in other words, it operates without state support, does 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 established a joint venture to realize the 650–1,000-megawatt Morro Bay offshore wind project off the Californian coast. It explored the use of so-called floating technology. Floating offshore wind turbines would soon make foundations in the seabed obsolete, making it possible to generate wind power in the deeper waters off the US West Coast.

In order to increase the share of renewable energies in our total generation capacity to 40 percent by 2020 – more than twice as much as in 2012 – EnBW remained active with two further offshore parks in the North Sea. Built at a cost of 2.2 billion euros, the 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 to power 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 opened offices in Taipei, New Jersey and Boston for international offshore projects.

With our Nezzy² project, we continued to explore how wind turbines can be used in coastal regions at greater water depths. Together with partners, we developed the prototype of a floating wind turbine. After an approximately 20-meter-high 1:10 scale model was tested in the Baltic Sea, the full-size turbine was ultimately destined for test operations off the coast of China.

EnBW continued to expand its offshore expertise and establish its international reputation. Together with bp, we were awarded the contract for three wind farms with a total output of 5.9 gigawatts at land auctions in Great Britain. The projects are named Mona, Morgan and Morven – in the Irish Sea and off the east coast of Scotland.

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

On 15 April 2023 at 11:59 p.m., Block II of Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant (GKN II) was taken offline as planned, bringing the era of German nuclear power to an end. In the same year, we reaffirmed our commitment to wind power with the final investment decision for EnBW He Dreiht. This meant construction work could begin.

Our largest offshore project to date is due to come into operation in spring 2026 with 64 wind turbines. Boasting a total output of 960 megawatts, it is expected to supply over one million households. This makes He Dreiht one of Europe’s leading energy transition projects. It will be able to produce more megawatts on its own than our four existing wind farms combined.

Around 30 kilometers off the coast of England, EnBW’s two wind farms Mona and Morgan are set to be commissioned in the Irish Sea. Their total output is expected to be around three gigawatts.

Shortly after the wind farms in the Irish Sea are commissioned, EnBW is planning to develop the sea off Scotland’s east coast in 2034. We expect the Morven wind farm to come into operation here in 2034, with construction work scheduled for 2026/2027. Together, the three wind farms Morven, Mona and Morgan can supply around six million households with green electricity over a total area of 1,660 square kilometers.

According to forecasts by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Germany will obtain more than half (51.8 percent) of its electricity mix from wind power in 2050. We want our offshore projects to play a key role in this. Our wind energy capacity is set to increase to 4,000 megawatts by 2025, which would not be possible without EnBW’s offshore wind farms.