RWE Commences Operation of 342MW Kaskasi Offshore Wind Farm in Germany

The RWE wind farm Kaskasi, located around 35 kilometres north of the island of Heligoland, officially commenced regular operation in the presence of Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.

With an installed capacity of 342 megawatts (MW), Kaskasi can supply the equivalent of over 400,000 households with green electricity.

The 38 wind turbines of Kaskasi were successively commissioned over four months. Since the end of 2022, all turbines have been feeding green electricity into the grid. After all required tests were successfully completed, the wind farm is now commencing regular operation.

The approval procedure for the wind farm started in spring 2019 and construction was greenlighted by the German Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie) at the end of 2020.

The total offshore construction time was nine months, the investment costs for Kaskasi amounted to around 800 million euros. More than 100 people at RWE alone worked on implementing this large project – hand in hand with the staff from over 70 suppliers.

Robert Habeck, German Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action: “Offshore wind is a key driver of the energy transition. Offshore wind turbines can produce more electricity during more hours per year than onshore turbines. We have thus increased the expansion targets in the German Offshore Wind Energy Act considerably, to at least 30 gigawatts by 2030. In addition, we have made significant improvements to the legal framework and took action to speed up approval procedures. With the area development plan, we have put the foundation in place for planning the expansion of offshore wind energy in Germany. Kaskasi was the only new offshore wind farm completed off the German coast last year. Its inauguration is to mark a turning point, we now want to drive the expansion of offshore wind energy forward in a targeted and coordinated manner.”

Markus Krebber, CEO of RWE AG: “Our Kaskasi offshore wind farm was the only that was constructed and connected to the grid in Germany last year. Many more must follow over the coming years for Germany to reach its climate targets. As one of the world’s leading companies in offshore wind, RWE can contribute considerably to achieving these goals. Together with our partner we have just selected the preferred turbine supplier for the next offshore wind cluster off the German coast. The cluster will have a total capacity of up to 1.6 gigawatts. And of course, we will also take part in the large German offshore auctions in summer this year.”