DHL Group has agreed to buy power from RWE's Kaskasi offshore wind farm for ten years, starting in 2026. On its own it is a modest contract. It is also the second of four ten-year contracts RWE signed on the same wind farm within eleven months. Across German offshore wind, the other big sellers were signing for fifteen.
Key takeaways
- RWE Supply & Trading has signed a 10-year electricity supply contract with DHL Group for the 342 MW Kaskasi offshore wind farm in the German North Sea, announced on 25 January 2024, starting in 2026 and covering around 104 GWh a year.
- Kaskasi sits 35 km off Helgoland, has 38 turbines and has been operating since March 2023, and it is equipped with recyclable rotor blades.
- Enerdatics records four corporate PPAs for Kaskasi signed between April 2023 and February 2024, all with a 10-year term: Schwarz Group, starting in 2028, then DHL Group, thyssenkrupp and Evonik.
- Of 29 German offshore wind PPAs Enerdatics records from January 2023 to June 2025, 21 disclose a term: 12 run for 15 years, six for 10 years and three for six to seven years, and only two disclose a tariff.
- DHL Group returned to German offshore wind in June 2025 with a 10-year PPA with EnBW for 20 MW from the He Dreiht offshore wind farm.
What does 104 GWh a year mean for a 342 MW wind farm?
It means DHL is buying a slice of output rather than a share of the turbines. A PPA, or power purchase agreement, is a long-term contract under which a buyer agrees to take electricity from a named generator at agreed terms. This one is defined in energy rather than capacity. Spread evenly across a year, 104 GWh is equivalent to about 11.9 MW of continuous supply, roughly 3.5 percent of Kaskasi's nameplate capacity.
Over the full ten years the contract covers around 1,040 GWh. For DHL Group the purpose is a credible green electricity supply for its operations in Germany. For RWE the contract does something different: it turns part of the output of an operating, already financed wind farm into fixed revenue for a decade, starting three years after the farm began generating.
Defining the contract in energy rather than megawatts also suits a buyer like DHL. A logistics group consumes power across warehouses, hubs and offices rather than at one large plant, so a volume commitment maps onto its demand more naturally than a share of a turbine's output.
How did RWE sell Kaskasi ten years at a time?
In four tranches over eleven months, starting weeks after the farm began generating.
January 2023. RWE signs a 320 MW, 10-year PPA with eleven offtakers for its Nordsee Ost and Amrumbank West offshore wind farms, one of whom is SCHOTT, which later added shorter onshore contracts to its mix.
March 2023. Kaskasi begins operation with 38 turbines and 342 MW of capacity, enough according to RWE to supply about 400,000 households.
April 2023. Schwarz Group signs a 10-year PPA for Kaskasi output, with supply starting in 2028.
January 2024. DHL Group signs a 10-year PPA for around 104 GWh a year, with supply starting in 2026.
February 2024. thyssenkrupp signs a 10-year PPA for Kaskasi on 19 February, followed by Evonik on 29 February, also for 10 years.
June 2025. DHL Group signs again in German offshore wind, this time a 10-year PPA with EnBW for 20 MW from He Dreiht.
The sequence shows a seller filling a single asset with staggered start dates. DHL's supply begins in 2026 and Schwarz's in 2028, so RWE is layering contracts so that the share of Kaskasi's output sold forward rises over time rather than all at once. None of the four disclosed a price.
Why does RWE sign for ten years when its rivals sign for fifteen?
Because the two groups of contracts serve different purposes. A 15-year PPA on a wind farm still being built is usually there to support its financing: lenders want the revenue fixed for as long as the debt runs. A 10-year PPA on a farm that is already operating is a commercial hedge. The seller is choosing how much price exposure to keep, and ten years leaves more of the asset's life free to sell again at whatever the market pays later.
The German data splits cleanly by supplier. All 12 of the 15-year contracts in the set were signed by three suppliers, EnBW, Iberdrola and Vattenfall, for four wind farms: He Dreiht, Baltic Eagle, Windanker and Nordlicht. Five of the six 10-year contracts were signed by RWE, four for Kaskasi, which was already generating when each was signed, and one for Nordsee Ost and Amrumbank West. The sixth is DHL's 2025 contract with EnBW, which suggests the ten-year term may be as much DHL's preference as RWE's.
Enerdatics records 29 German offshore wind PPAs announced between January 2023 and June 2025. Twenty-one disclose a duration, and only two disclose a tariff, both for the Butendiek wind farm. The short end of the market sits with two wind farms: Ocean Breeze Energy's contracts for the BARD Offshore 1 wind farm run for six and seven years, and Greencoat's Butendiek contract for six and a half. Glennmont's purchase of half of Orsted's Gode Wind 3, set against EnBW's He Dreiht stake sale, shows how much capital is chasing the same North Sea output on the ownership side.
What does the deal signal for German offshore wind PPAs?
That the buyer pool has widened well beyond heavy industry. Steelmakers and chemical groups still dominate: thyssenkrupp, Evonik, Salzgitter, Stahl-Holding-Saar and BASF all appear in the set. But DHL Group is a logistics company, Schwarz Group is a retailer and Deutsche Telekom and Telefonica are telecoms groups. Offshore wind PPAs in Germany are now a standard procurement tool for any large electricity user with a decarbonisation target, not a niche for energy-intensive industry.
It also points to the price opacity that will persist. With two tariffs disclosed out of 29 contracts, German offshore wind PPA pricing remains almost entirely private. Duration is the one commercial term the market reliably reveals, and on that measure the market has settled into two camps: fifteen years from EnBW, Iberdrola and Vattenfall, and ten years from RWE on a farm that was already running.
Frequently asked questions
How much power will DHL Group buy from Kaskasi? Around 104 GWh a year for ten years, starting in 2026, under a contract with RWE Supply & Trading. The price was not disclosed.
Who else buys power from the Kaskasi offshore wind farm? Enerdatics records PPAs with Schwarz Group, signed in April 2023 for 10 years from 2028, thyssenkrupp and Evonik, both signed in February 2024 for 10 years, alongside DHL Group.
How long do German offshore wind PPAs usually run? Of the 21 contracts with a disclosed term that Enerdatics records from January 2023 to June 2025, 12 run for 15 years, six for 10 years and three for six to seven years.
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