RWE AG (RWE.XE) said Tuesday it is stepping up efforts to increase its footprint in the lucrative renewables energy market by investing in offshore wind power generation projects in its home market Germany.
"We're in concrete talks over German offshore (wind) projects," said Fritz Vahrenholt, chief executive of the company's renewable energy unit RWE Innogy, in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires.
Vahrenholt didn't elaborate further on the ongoing negotiations, but added the company is targeting to reach a German offshore wind power generation capacity of 1 gigawatt by 2012.
"Our estimate is that this should equate to roughly one-third of Germany's total offshore wind power capacity at that point in time," Vahrenholt said.
He also said RWE Innogy expects to conclude talks with German wind turbine manufacture REpower Systems AG (RPW.XE) for the delivery of 250 five-megawatt offshore wind turbines before the end of the year.
"The talks (with REpower) are still exclusive and are progressing well," Vahrenholt said.