Evonik and EnBW sign contract for electricity from offshore wind farm He Dreiht
Evonik is becoming less dependent on fossil fuels: The specialty chemicals company signed a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) for wind energy with the energy supplier EnBW.
The PPA provides Evonik with 100 megawatts (MW) from the new 900-MW He Dreiht wind farm in the German North Sea.
This agreement alone will enable Evonik to cover around a quarter of its electricity needs in Europe with renewable energy from 2026 on. EnBW will supply the green electricity over a period of 15 years. Since chemical production requires a constant energy supply, Evonik will compensate for fluctuations of the wind energy feed-in through its own balancing group management.
Christian Kullmann, CEO of Evonik, says:
"Together with EnBW, we are accelerating the implementation of our ambitious sustainability strategy. We are becoming less dependent on fossil fuels and their price fluctuations. Clearly, the less fossil and more green energy we use, the better the future opportunities for our German and European sites will be."
The PPA with EnBW is just the beginning. Evonik is working on other agreements for green electricity purchased directly from producers to increase the company's share of renewable energy usage.
Thomas Wessel, responsible for sustainability on the Executive Board, says:
"The green electricity from the new offshore wind farm is a very important lever for our goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Today, 27 percent of Evonik's externally purchased electricity worldwide already comes from renewable sources. Implementing the PPA with EnBW significantly increases this share to more than 40 percent."
At the same time, the cooperation reduces Evonik's Scope 2 emissions (electricity from external sources) by 100,000 metric tons of CO₂ per year. The company recently announced the goal of reducing its Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions from the current 6.5 million tons to 4.9 million tons by 2030. About one-third of this net reduction will be achieved by switching to renewable energy sources.
The He Dreiht wind farm will be built about 90 kilometers northwest of Borkum and 110 kilometers west of Helgoland. It is scheduled to start operating at the end of 2025. In 2017, EnBW won the first tender in Germany with a zero-cent bid and thus initiated a new trend in the offshore market. The subsidy-free offshore wind farm is currently one of Europe's largest energy transition projects. For the first time, 15-MW turbines will be deployed.
As a central instrument of the energy transition, PPAs are becoming increasingly important.
EnBW management board member Georg Stamatelopoulos explains:
"We can only achieve the energy transition together. PPAs are a tool for this. They help companies to achieve ambitious climate targets and enable developers of renewable energy projects to obtain reliable financing. This way, the economy and the climate both benefit. With Evonik, we have gained another strong partner for our He Dreiht offshore wind farm."
EnBW will make the final investment decision on the offshore wind farm in 2023.
