Vattenfall has signed a long-term electricity supply contract with the steel producer Salzgitter for 75 MW of electricity to come from the Nordlicht 1 offshore wind farm in the German North Sea.

With this power purchase agreement (PPA), Salzgitter secures the supply of green electricity for 15 years from the 980 MW offshore wind farm located around 85 kilometres north of the island of Borkum, which is planned to be completed and connected to the grid in 2028.

Salzgitter will then purchase around 300 GWh of electricity per year for the steelmaking process, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of approximately 120,000 households, Vattenfall said.

“With our SALCOS® program, we are already in the middle of the transformation of steel production towards low-CO2 production processes, making us a leader in the steel industry. Green steel needs green energy: This agreement is therefore the next important step in securing our energy requirements for low CO2 production”, said Gunnar Groebler, CEO of Salzgitter.

The Nordlicht wind project is being built in the German North Sea without state subsidies. The area consists of two separate sites: Nordlicht 1 with a capacity of around 980 MW and Nordlicht 2 with around 630 MW.

The offshore wind project will feature 112 Vestas V236-15.0 MW wind turbines, with 68 of them set to be installed at the Nordlicht 1 site.

Vattenfall is developing and building the Nordlicht sites and intends to use its share of future electricity generation to supply customers in Germany with fossil-free electricity.

BASF holds a 49 per cent stake in the Nordlicht 1 and 2 wind farm projects. The company is planning to use almost half of the electricity to supply its chemical production sites in Europe, especially in Ludwigshafen.

When it comes to Salzgitter, the company has also secured PPAs with Iberdrola Deutschland for the Baltic Eagle project and EnBW for the He Dreiht offshore wind farm.