MLK Group has officially commissioned the Erkelenz-Holzweiler wind farm in North Rhine-Westphalia. The ceremony took place on 20 October 2026 and was attended by Oliver Krischer, the state’s minister for environment, nature conservation and transport, Erkelenz deputy mayor Christel Honold-Ziegahn and MLK managing director Heinrich Lohmann.
The site has two Vestas V172-7.2 MW turbines with a combined capacity of 14.4 MW. Each stands 250 metres tall, with a hub height of 164 metres and a rotor diameter of 172 metres. According to MLK, they are the most powerful and tallest wind turbines in the Heinsberg district. The developer forecasts an annual yield of 37 million kilowatt-hours, which it equates to the consumption of about 9,900 households. The switchgear is free of sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), an insulating gas with a high climate impact.
Minister Krischer said the project showed how wind power is expanding in the Rhenish mining region, where lignite shaped the landscape and local life for decades. He said the region would remain an energy region, in future based on wind and solar. Lohmann recalled that he planned MLK’s first turbines in the early 1990s with the local BUND group near the Garzweiler open-cast mine.
Holzweiler is part of MLK’s expansion programme around Erkelenz, Linnich and Titz, which envisages 210 MW. Residents can take part through subordinated loans and an energy cooperative. MLK says it has more than 780 MW of installed wind capacity, of which 380 MW it operates itself, and a project pipeline of 1 GW. The company’s focus has been Brandenburg in recent years, and it now has ten new projects in the Rhineland. Germany is one of the eight Baltic Sea states, and onshore additions such as this one feed into the national build-out that Baltic offshore and grid projects depend on.
