Ørsted and Nuveen inaugurate the 913 MW Borkum Riffgrund 3 off Germany
The wind farm 72 km off the North Sea coast is the first to connect directly to TenneT's DolWin epsilon platform
Ørsted and its partner Nuveen Infrastructure have inaugurated Borkum Riffgrund 3, a 913 MW offshore wind farm about 72 kilometres off the German North Sea coast. The two companies own it 50/50. It is Ørsted's largest wind farm in Germany and can generate enough electricity each year for close to one million German households.
The project connects directly to TenneT's DolWin epsilon converter platform, a first for an offshore wind farm in Germany. Its power helps meet demand from industrial and digital companies including Amazon, Google, EHA/REWE Group, Covestro and BASF.
"With 913 MW, this single project adds nearly a tenth to our national offshore capacity, which has already surpassed 10 GW this year," said Katherina Reiche, Germany's federal minister for economic affairs and energy, at the ceremony in Hamburg. Lower Saxony's economy and transport minister, Grant Hendrik Tonne, also attended.
The wind farm was built through a European supply chain: turbines and foundations from Germany and Denmark, cables from Germany and France, and installation vessels from the Netherlands and Belgium. Around 100 German companies were contracted during development and construction. Operations and maintenance are run from Ørsted's sites at Norden-Norddeich and Emden.
Borkum Riffgrund 3 is Ørsted's sixth operating offshore wind farm in Germany and takes its installed capacity there to about 2.5 GW, a 25% market share and the largest operating portfolio of any company in the country. Chief executive Rasmus Errboe called it "a large step towards delivery on our global 8.1 GW construction portfolio".
Ørsted used the opening to press for changes to Germany's auction rules. Josche Muth, country manager of Ørsted Germany, welcomed the move to two-sided contracts for difference, longer operating lives and more cross-border projects, and called for a CfD-only auction model with indexation to cover inflation and macroeconomic risks outside developers' control, as the UK, Poland, Denmark and Belgium already allow. Germany still imports more than 60% of its energy. The offshore wind industry generated more than 30,000 full-time jobs and EUR 14.6bn in gross value in Germany in 2025.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 28 September 2026.
