RWE Innogy, the renewable energy unit of Germany's second-largest utility RWE, plans to invest about Eur5 billion ($6.4 billion) in renewable energy projects over the coming four years, RWE Innogy's CEO Fritz Vahrenholt said Tuesday.
The company plans to increase its installed renewable capacity to 4.5 GW from 2.5 GW over the period, a spokeswoman for RWE Innogy confirmed to Platts.
Seventy percent of this will be new wind projects, while 35% of the investment volume is earmarked for Germany and will include the 295 MW Nordsee Ost offshore wind farm off the German North Sea island of Helgoland.
However, this project is currently delayed and will come online 2013 at the earliest, rather than the third quarter of 2012 as planned. This is due to problems with the grid connection on the side of grid operator TenneT, the spokeswoman told Platts.
TenneT last year informed the German government that any further connections of offshore wind parks in the North Sea to the German high-voltage grid are not possible under current framework conditions.
"TenneT is making an extraordinary effort on connecting offshore wind farms in Germany," the company said in 2011, adding that it is investing billions of euros, an unprecedented sum in European terms, for nine projects being developed for the German North Sea.
