EDF to buy entire output of RWE’s 1.4GW Sofia offshore wind farm

French utility EDF has signed a 15-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with RWE to buy all the electricity generated by the 1400MW Sofia (formerly Dogger Bank Teesside B) Sofia (formerly Dogger Bank Teesside B) (1400MW) Offshoreoff Yorkshire, UK, Europe Click to see full details offshore wind farm, currently under development 165km off northern England’s coast in the North Sea.

Under the agreement, which has been hailed as “RWE and EDF’s largest renewable energy agreement to date”, EDF will offtake all the 6.5TWh of energy Sofia is estimated to produce each year. The project is due to start generating power in 2025, with full commissioning in 2026. 

Installation of the 100 Siemens Gamesa SG 14-222 DD wind turbines is scheduled to start in 2023. Onshore preparation works began in June.

“This agreement marks a major milestone in our progress towards achieving net zero, as well as the UK’s ambition to grow offshore wind capacity to 40GW by 2030,” said Philippe Commaret, managing director of customers at EDF.

EDF claims to be Britain’s biggest generator of zero-carbon electricity — which includes nuclear — and to offtake the most renewable electricity of any energy supplier in the country through both equity-owned generation and PPA contracts. RWE also owns the Triton Knoll offshore wind farm off the eastern coast of England, which is due online next year. 

In a separate development, Ørsted has signed a 12-year corporate PPA with Google for a 50MW portion of the 900MW Borkum Riffgrund 3 Borkum Riffgrund 3 (900MW) Offshorenorth-west of Borkum, Germany, Europe Click to see full details project in the German North Sea, expected to go into full commercial operation in 2025. Google is committed to operating all its data centres, cloud regions and campuses on carbon-free energy by 2030.