Germany starts working on 3.5 GW of new offshore wind areas

Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) will soon start preliminary site investigations at three new offshore wind areas in the North Sea. The three sites are planned to be auctioned off in 2026/2027 and could jointly accommodate 3.5 GW of installed capacity.

On 4 October, BSH launched a tender for the monitoring of geophysical (seismic) investigations that are due to start at the beginning of 2023 at two of the sites, with the same operations at the third site scheduled for 2024.

The three areas are N-13.1 (500 MW), N-13.2 (1,000 MW), and N-13.3 (2,000 MW) in the North Sea and are part of Germany’s new Site Development Plan, the draft of which was released this Summer.

According to the ongoing tender for monitoring operations, the area N-13.3 might be advanced by one year and all three N-13 sites could undergo preliminary offshore surveys next year. 

In this case, BSH could add another area to be explored in 2024, the 2,000 MW N-21.1 area which could be put out to tender in 2028.

The 500 MW N-13.1 and the 1 GW N-13.2 are planned to be commissioned by the end of 2031, while the 2 GW N-13.3 is planned to follow suit around the same time the following year.

The 2 GW area N-21.1 is anticipated to be built until the third quarter of 2033.

The N-13 sites are located some 45 to 70 kilometres north of the existing GlobalTech I offshore wind farm, and between 30 and 45 kilometres southwest of the Sandbank offshore wind farm, also already in operation. The N-21.1 site is in the immediate vicinity of the Deutsche Bucht, Veja Mate and BARD Offshore 1 offshore wind farms, all in operation, as well as EnBW’s new He Dreiht project.

The new German Site Development Plan serves as a basis for the future expansion of offshore wind energy and the associated grid connections, and is already implementing the increase in expansion targets for offshore wind energy planned by the federal government.

With the draft development plan in place, areas with a planned output totaling approximately 60 GW are to be defined by the year 2038.

Earlier this year, Germany established an expansion target of at least 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030, at least 40 GW by 2035, and at least 70 GW by 2045.

The country is also one of the four signatories of the Esbjerg Declaration, under which Belgium, Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands set a joint offshore wind target of having at least 65 GW of generation capacity installed by 2030, and 150 GW by 2050.