RWE has put the Lesse and Barbecke wind farms, which are located next to each other in Lower Saxony, back into full operation following a successful repowering project. During the upgrade, 17 wind turbines which were around 20 years old were replaced by 11 more powerful, state-of-the-art assets.

The new wind turbines have a total capacity of 61.8 MW, more than twice the previous total (30.6 MW) and they can supply the equivalent of around 43 500 households with green electricity. The town of Salzgitter as well as the municipalities of Lengede, Burgdorf and Söhlde are expected to make a profit of up to €280 000 per year from the wind farms. With a considerably larger rotor diameter of around 150 m, the new turbines can capture more wind and produce green electricity even at low wind speeds. This means that the power output is set to more than triple.

Katja Wünschel, CEO RWE Renewables Europe & Australia, said: “Fewer turbines, twice the capacity. This is the result of having successfully repowered the Lesse and Barbecke wind farms. We are particularly delighted to have finished the work sooner than planned due our dedicated on-site team and the excellent collaboration with our partner companies. This shows once again that RWE is accelerating the expansion of renewables.”

Repowering with RWE

In Schleswig-Holstein, RWE has already started the next repowering project. It will double the capacity of the Lasbek wind farm in the Hamburg metropolitan area. Further repowering projects across Germany are currently in planning.