Vodafone has also deployed 2G, LTE and 5G technologies to improve the operational capabilities of RWE’s offshore wind farms.
German telecommunications company Vodafone and the country’s energy company RWE have signed a deal to power thousands of mobile phone network towers across Germany with renewable energy from offshore wind turbines in the North Sea.
RWE’s Kaskasi offshore wind farm produces around 1,000 gigawatt-hours of wind energy each year. From 2026, the wind farm’s energy will also be used to help run Germany’s 5G mobile network more sustainably, Vodafone said in a release.
Under the deal, Vodafone will purchase 250 gigawatt-hours of wind energy per year from the Kaskasi wind farm through a power purchase agreement (PPA). The power supply agreement, which will run for 10 years, will enable around 12,000 mobile phone towers across Germany to operate permanently with electricity from renewable sources, Vodafone said.
Vodafone has also deployed 2G, LTE and 5G technologies to improve the operational capabilities of the wind farm. The company said that currently special offshore mobile phone stations connect technicians on site, but in future 5G will also connect drones and sensors. The German telecommunications company explained that 5G will allow inspection drones to be controlled in real time via mobile communications, allowing early detection of potential technical failures in the giant wind turbines. Networked sensors for telemedicine will also improve the safety of employees on site.
“We are deploying state-of-the-art 5G at sea to support wind power in Germany. We are also using wind energy from the sea to make mobile communications in Germany more sustainable. If we want to support the digital energy transition, we need to lead by example and run our network on 100% renewable energy sources,” said Philipp Rogge, CEO of Vodafone Germany.
Ulf Kerstin, Chief Commercial Officer at RWE Supply & Trading, said: “With our green energy solutions we are helping to ensure that the energy transition also progresses for our industrial customers. Kaskasi will be our sixth wind farm in the German North Sea. We have more planned and are currently developing the North Sea cluster in the northern Juist. A further 1.6 gigawatts are due to be generated there in the coming years.”
Vodafone Germany’s 5G network will reach 91% of the country’s population as of the end of 2023, while its 5G standalone network (SA) currently serves around 45% of Germany’s population, the company added. Vodafone has previously said its 5G SA technology would cover the whole country by 2025.
Vodafone Germany has partnered with Ericsson, Nokia, Qualcomm and Oppo to launch its 5G SA network in 2022. Vodafone is currently using frequencies in the 3.6 GHz, 1.8 GHz and 700 MHz bands for its 5G expansion across metropolitan areas, residential areas, suburban and rural areas across Germany.
Vodafone was the first to launch a 5G network in Germany in 2019, using the 3.5GHz frequencies it acquired from Telefonica in 2018.
