He Dreiht inaugurated: Germany’s largest offshore wind farm moves toward full commissioning

# Summary He Dreiht, located in the German North Sea, has been inaugurated and is entering a staged commissioning process. The farm contains 64 Vestas 15 MW turbines for a combined capacity of 960 MW. Construction began in May 2024. The first turbines are already producing power and more will be connected, tested and started up until the entire farm is live in the coming months.

# Project specifics The wind farm sits roughly 50 miles northwest of Borkum and about 68 miles west of Heligoland. Each turbine has a hub height of 142 meters and a rotor diameter of 236 meters, with a swept area of about 44,000 square meters per rotation. Taken together, the array will deliver up to 960 MW when fully operational.

EnBW is the project's majority owner with 50.1 percent through a project company. The remaining 49.9 percent is held by a consortium of Allianz Global Investors (on behalf of Allianz entities), AIP Management and Norges Bank Investment Management. The development cost reported for the project is around €2.4 billion.

# Financing and offtake He Dreiht was awarded in the 2017 auction round without entitlement to state funding. It was built without state subsidies and financed through long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). Corporate buyers include Evonik, Google, PASM (Telekom subsidiary), Fraport, Bosch, Salzgitter, SHS Stahl‑Holding Saar, Deutsche Bahn and DHL Group. These PPAs are intended to provide long-term price stability and planning certainty for both developer and offtake partners.

# Grid connection and commissioning TenneT is the grid operator responsible for the farm's connection. Electricity will reach shore via an offshore platform and two submarine cables. Commissioning is incremental: individual turbines are connected, tested, and started in sequence. That process is already under way, with full operation expected in the coming months based on current progress.

# Strategic context for EnBW and Germany EnBW reports the project as its largest single renewable investment. EnBW's installed output across generation sources stands at about 8 GW, more than double its 2018 figure, and the company aims for roughly 80 percent of its generation portfolio to be renewables by the end of 2030.

# What comes next EnBW is already working on further offshore projects, notably Dreekant (1 GW in the German North Sea) and Morven (2.9 GW in Scotland). He Dreiht's staged commissioning will continue until all turbines are online, tested and delivering into the grid.

# Bottom line He Dreiht is a non-subsidized, corporate‑PPA financed offshore wind project that increases Germany's offshore fleet by nearly 1 GW. It demonstrates a large-scale private-finance model with major corporate buyers and will reach full operation after the ongoing stepwise grid connection and testing process is completed.