EDF Renewables has repowered the Eckolstadt wind farm, the first of several such projects the French energy giant will undertake in Germany.
The Eckolstadt project, in Thuringia, comprised 11 turbines with an installed capacity of 14.5MW when it was commissioned in 1999. The repowering has increased the plant’s capacity to 34.5MW using 10 new, bigger machines.
After obtaining planning permission and securing a 20-year power purchase agreement contract in late 2016, Eckolstadt’s wind turbines were fully dismantled by REETEC, an EDF Renewables subsidiary, in early 2018. The turbine components were mostly recycled and the foundations were crushed to be used as backfill for the platforms of new projects and surrounding roads.
The repowering project, which took six months to complete, contributes to EDF Group’s ‘Cap 2030′ strategy, aimed at doubling its worldwide renewables capacity to 50GW between 2015 and 2030.
EDF Renewables is currently assessing other repowering projects in Germany where there is potential for 4.5GW or 6000 wind turbines eligible for upgrading by the end of 2020, and around 1600 wind turbines annually between 2021 and 2026, according to a study by Deutsche WindGuard.
In France, EDF Renewables is also actively evaluating four repowering projects.
The growing number of wind farms due to reach the end of their life-cycle between 2020 and 2030 represents an installed capacity of around 76 GW across Europe, according to WindEurope.