EnBW Picks Emden as North Sea Wind Farm Base

EnBW Energie Baden-Württemberg AG has decided to build an Operations & Maintenance (O&M) base on an airfield in Emden, Germany, for the company’s offshore wind farms in the North Sea.

The O&M base will service the company’s 497MW Hohe See and 112MW Albatros offshore wind farms, as well as the 900MW He Dreiht offshore wind farm.

The service station will include a two-story building, which will be located on a total area of almost 450m2, with offices, social rooms and a warehouse for spare parts and tools, as well as sufficient parking space.

In addition, the service operations for EnBW’s offshore wind farms will be carried out by helicopter.

The construction of the facility will start in the spring of 2018, with 40 Emden employees to start performing maintenance and service work for Hohe See and Albatros offshore wind farms in 2019.

The 900MW He Dreiht offshore wind farm, scheduled to go into operation in 2025, will also be serviced from Emden, creating 60 new jobs, EnBW said.

According to Ralf Neulinger, Head of Renewable Energy Production at EnBW, the company has been responsible for operational management of the Bard Offshore 1 substation from Emden for almost a year, and thus looks forward to expanding its local involvement with the new facility.

The Hohe See and Albatros offshore wind farms, currently being constructed about 95km north of Borkum and 100km northwest of Heligoland, are scheduled for commissioning in 2019.

In April, EnBW won the rights to develop He Dreiht by placing a bid for the construction of the project without subsidies at the first competitive tender in Germany.