RWE will buy all electricity from the 219MW Northwester wind farm currently being built in the Belgian part of the North Sea to sell it on to large industrial and municipal customers with guarantees of origin.
The German utility’s supply and trading unit for that purpose recently has concluded a power purchase agreement (PPA) with developer Parkwind, securing an expected 800 gigawatts per year.
“This is an attractive opportunity for us to secure and manage electricity volumes from renewable generation for the future,” said Andree Stracke, chief commercial officer origination & gas supply at RWE Supply & Trading.
“It confirms RWE’s commitment towards the Belgian energy market and our ambition to expand in renewable energy activities.”
The array off the coast of Zeebrugge is slated for commissioning early next year, when 23 MHI Vestas 9.5MW turbines will feed into the Belgian grid.
Northwester is one of three Belgian offshore projects that combined will have more than 700MW in capacity, for which the government in Brussels in 2017 had renegotiated and sharply reduced support to €79 per megawatt hour ($89.70/MWh), from €129/MWh previously promised.
Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. last year had bought a 30% stake in Northwester 2, the development of which is led by Belgium’s Parkwind consortium.
