German offshore wind farms produce 18% more power in H1 2020

German offshore wind farms produced 13.73 terawatt hours (TWh) in the first half of 2020, almost 18 per cent more than in the same period last year (11.64 TWh).

Of this, TenneT transmitted 11.51 TWh of offshore wind energy from the North Sea to the onshore grid, marking a 21.1 per cent increase compared to the first half of 2019, when the transmission system operator’s lines delivered 9.51 TWh of North Sea offshore wind to German households.

“Power transmission from the North Sea accounts for a good 15.6 percent of total wind power generation in Germany, which reached 73.7 terawatt hours in the first half of 2020”, TenneT states.

The total wind power generation also includes that from the Baltic Sea (as well as the onshore wind farms), from where 50Hertz – the transmission system operator in charge of the Baltic Sea connections – transmitted 2.22 TWh, a little over 4 per cent more than last year.

In the first half of 2019, the Baltic Sea offshore wind farms generated 2.13 TWh, which was then marked as a 145 per cent increase compared to the first half of 2018, as the Arkona and the Wikinger offshore wind farms were commissioned.

The full-year figures for 2019 now published by TenneT show that the offshore wind farms in the German North Sea produced 20.25 TWh of electricity last year, and those in the Baltic Sea generated 4.13 TWh.

The maximum infeed performance of North Sea offshore wind farms reached 6,077 MW on 5 December 2019.

The maximum infeed performance in the first half of 2020 was measured at 6,035 MW on 2 January, with capacity expansion of offshore wind farms in the German North Sea bringing this up to 6,679 MW by 30 June 2020.

At 7,132 MW in the German North Sea alone, TenneT’s connection capacity already exceeds the federal government’s target for 2020 of 6.5 GW for the North and Baltic Seas in total.

TenneT currently has 14 offshore grid connections in operation, two of them in the Dutch North Sea and twelve in the German North Sea. In the Dutch North Sea, the company will reach 1.4 GW of connection capacity by mid-August. By 2030, TenneT’s offshore grid connection capacity will increase to around 17 GW in Germany and 9.6 GW in the Netherlands.

The transmission system operator said that in June it submitted proposals to the EU and the Dutch and German governments to create an integrated energy system approach to the international development of offshore wind energy, including bespoke technology and regulations to facilitate the use of hybrid projects.