FRANKFURT: Chemical giant BASF and German utility RWE on Friday announced a potential € 4 billion ($ 4.9 billion) offshore wind energy project to reduce emissions from the most energy-intensive industrial site in ‘Germany.

As part of the project, which depends on more favorable legislation, RWE plans to build a 2 gigawatt (GW) offshore wind farm by 2030 to help supply BASF’s chemical complex in Ludwigshafen, the world’s largest consumer of electricity from Germany.

BASF will own 49% of the wind farm, said RWE CEO Markus Krebber, adding that while 80% of the farm’s output goes to Ludwigshafen, the remaining fifth will be used to power a 300 megawatt electrolyser to produce electricity. hydrogen says green.

“Without the availability of sufficient volumes of electricity from renewable sources at competitive prices, our future transformation will not be possible,” said Martin Brudermueller, CEO of BASF.

The fate of the project depends on a number of regulatory factors, including faster tenders for potential sites in the North Sea as well as renewables exempt from heavy green energy taxes in Germany.

Electricity demand in Ludwigshafen is expected to triple by 2035, Brudermueller said at a press conference jointly organized with RWE, adding that the wind farm would meet about a quarter of the energy needs of the chemical production center of his company. (1 USD = 0.8179 euros)