Deutsche Bahn taps RWE for more offshore wind power

Deutsche Bahn (German Rail) and RWE Supply & Trading have signed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for electricity produced at the Amrumbank West offshore wind farm.

The PPA will begin in 2024 and run until 2039.

The 288 MW Amrumbank West is located around 30 kilometres off the coast of Heligoland in the German North Sea. The wind farm’s 80 wind turbines have been in operation since 2015.

The supply volume to Deutsche Bahn requires the capacity of 18 wind turbines, or around one-quarter of the annual generation capacity of the offshore wind farm. That’s a total of around 260 MWh, RWE said.

This is the second offshore wind PPA between RWE and Deutsche Bahn.

In 2019, RWE closed a PPA with Deutsche Bahn to supply electricity from its Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm, also close to Heligoland.

Deutsche Bahn is already the largest consumer of green electricity in Germany with 61 per cent of the company’s consumption covered by renewable sources. By 2038, all of the electricity powering Deutsche Bahn’s trains is to come from renewables.

“We were already supplying Deutsche Bahn with green electricity today,” Andree Stracke, Managing Director of RWE Supply & Trading, said.

”This additional agreement will help our long-standing partner to achieve their ambitious climate protection goals. We are increasingly supplying and shaping green electricity for our industrial customers in Europe.”