BORKUM/HAMBURG (dpa-AFX) - Wind farm operator Ørsted has started construction work on another offshore wind farm in the German North Sea. The first foundations have been laid for the new Borkum Riffgrund 3 wind farm, the company announced in Hamburg on Wednesday. The new wind farm around 72 kilometers off the coast of Lower Saxony is set to become the largest offshore wind farm in Germany to date with a capacity of 913 megawatts by 2025. According to Ørsted, this could supply around 90,000 households with electricity. Once the foundations have been installed, a total of 83 turbines of the latest generation from Siemens Gamesa, each with an output of 11 megawatts, are to be installed.

The Group had already started construction work on its first new offshore wind farm in the North Sea in August - namely Gode Wind 3 around 32 kilometers off the island of Norderney. A total of 23 turbines with an output of 11 megawatts each are to be installed there by 2024. According to Ørsted, the turbines with a rotor diameter of 200 meters will be the largest wind turbines in the German North Sea, just like Borkum Riffgrund 3.

Ørsted is one of the world's leading operators of offshore wind farms. To date, the Danish energy provider operates four wind farms in the German Bight: Borkum Riffgrund 1 and 2 as well as Gode Wind 1 and 2. Operation and maintenance is carried out from Emden and Norden-Norddeich in East Frisia. Together with the two new wind farms, the aim is to produce enough wind energy each year to supply the equivalent of around 2.5 million households.

According to the latest figures from consultancy firm Deutsche Windguard, a total of 1563 wind turbines with a total output of around 8.3 gigawatts were in operation in the German North and Baltic Seas by the middle of the year. A few days ago, the new Arcadis Ost 1 wind farm off the island of Rügen with 27 turbines was also fully connected to the grid. The plan is to install a further 22 gigawatts of wind energy capacity at sea by 2030 - that would be more than two and a half times the current capacity./len/DP/ngu