Construction of RWE’s next German onshore wind farm, the 22.8-megawatt Sandbostel-Bevern project in Lower Saxony, has commenced. A total of four Nordex wind turbines are being erected in the Rotenburg (Wümme) district, at the south-western edge of the Hamburg metropolitan area. What is special about this project is that three turbines with a total installed capacity of 17.1 megawatts (MW) are owned by RWE, while a further, identical turbine with a nominal capacity of 5.7 MW is erected by RWE on behalf of the local citizens’ cooperative OsteWind GmbH & Co. KG. The cooperative will operate this turbine themselves. “Following completion of the work, currently planned for the end of this year, the four wind turbines will produce enough green electricity to supply over 13,000 households with climate-friendly energy,” says said Jens Edler-Krupp, who is responsible for developing RWE’s German onshore wind farms.
The new wind farm in northern Lower Saxony is not just more proof of RWE's ambition to implement every feasible renewables project in Germany, it also shows that collaboration with local partners is an excellent way to drive the energy transition forward. RWE already operates onshore wind farms with an installed capacity of more than 580 MW in the country. In order to keep up the fast pace of expanding renewables, RWE wants to invest up to €15 billion gross in the expansion of offshore and onshore wind, solar, storage, flexible back-up capacities and hydrogen by 2030.