The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm planned to be developed with 900MW capacity in the German sector of the North Sea, is expected to be the biggest offshore wind farm in Germany and one of the biggest such facilities in the world.
Danish energy company Ørsted, which also developed the Borkum Riffgrund 1 and the Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore wind farms, is the owner and developer of the project.
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A power purchase agreement (PPA) for the proposed wind farm was signed in December 2019, while the turbine model, as well as the turbine supplier, was selected in the first quarter of 2020.
The offshore installation works for the project are expected to be started in 2024 with commissioning expected in 2025.
The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm is expected to generate enough clean electricity for approximately 920,000 German households while reducing up to three million tonnes (Mt) of CO2 emissions annually.
Project location
Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm is planned to be developed in approximately 30m-deep waters in the German North Sea, approximately 53km off the coast of Borkum Island, Germany.
The 900MW wind farm will be located adjacent to the existing Borkum Riffgrund 1 and the Borkum Riffgrund wind farms.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 project background
Ørsted won the contracts to build the 420MW Borkum Riffgrund West 1, the 240MW Borkum Riffgrund West 2, and the 240MW OWP West offshore wind farm projects during German offshore wind auction held in 2017 and 2018.
It merged these three separate projects into a single 900MW project named Borkum Riffgrund 3 in September 2019.
The offshore wind farm is planned to be operated without any subsidies as it will use advanced wind turbine technology and grid connection costs are not included as part of the project.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 wind farm make-up and turbine details
The Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm will be installed with approximately 80 SG 11.0-200 DD wind turbines from Siemens Gamesa.
With 200m-diametre rotor and 97m-long blades, each turbine will have a swept area of 31,400m2.
Designed for high-wind offshore locations, each SG 11.0-200 pitch regulated and the direct-drive turbine will have a rated output of 11MW and offer up to 9% more annual energy production (AEP) compared to its predecessor SG 10.0-193 DD turbines.
The SG 11.0-200 DD wind turbine design incorporates Siemens Gamesa’s B97 IntegralBlade® technology and the High Wind Ride Through (HWRT) technology to stabilize the energy output during wind speed greater than 25m/s.
The commercial production of the SG 11.0-200 DD wind turbines is expected to be started in 2022.
Grid connection
The electricity generated by the wind farm is planned to be gathered and transmitted through 66kV power cables to the DolWin epsilon offshore converter platform which is proposed to be built as part of the DolWin5 offshore transmission project by TenneT.
The electricity from the offshore converter substation will be further transmitted through a 100km subsea cable which will make landfall at Hamswehrum.
An onshore cable from Hamswehrum will run for 30km to connect a converter station in Emden for feeding electricity into TenneT’s high-voltage onshore grid.
Power purchase agreement
Covestro, a polymers company based in Germany, entered into a 10-year corporate power purchase agreement (PPA) with Ørsted in December 2019 to off-take 100MW of electricity from the Borkum Riffgrund 3 starting from 2025.
Contractors involved
Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) was selected as the turbine supplier for the Borkum Riffgrund 3 offshore wind farm project in March 2020. Siemens Gamesa will also be responsible to provide maintenance services for the wind turbines for a period of five years.
Borkum Riffgrund 1&2 offshore wind farms
The 312MW Borkum Riffgrund 1 offshore wind farm, located approximately 37km offshore Borkum Island, was commissioned in October 2015. It is installed with 78 Siemens SWT-4.0-120 wind turbines.
The 450MW Borkum Riffgrund 2 wind farm, commissioned in 2019, is located in the German North Sea, approximately 54km off the coast of Lower Saxony. The wind farm consists of 56 V164-8.0 MW MHI Vestas wind turbines.
