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Wind turbines in Germany: expansion is not enough to achieve climate goals

2021-07-27T06:58:23.927Z


In the first half of the year, 240 new wind turbines were installed on land in Germany - an increase of 62 percent. But the industry says: In order to achieve the climate targets, more speed has to be accelerated.


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Wind turbines in Brandenburg

Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa

At first glance, the numbers sound good: In Germany, significantly more new wind turbines were added onshore in the first six months of this year.

240 new wind turbines with a total output of 971 megawatts were installed - compared to the same period last year, this is an increase of 62 percent.

The news agency dpa and ARD report, citing industry associations.

From the point of view of the industry, however, the level is not sufficient to be able to achieve climate targets.

In the first half of the year, 135 wind turbines with an output of 140 megawatts were shut down.

In this respect, the so-called net expansion was 831 megawatts.

According to ARD, the associations are expecting 2.2 to 2.4 gigawatts of additional capacity for the entire year 2021.

For comparison: In the peak years 2014 to 2017, this was between 3.5 and just under 4.9 gigawatts per year.

"We are of course satisfied that we are experiencing an increase again after the deepest crisis," said the President of the Federal Wind Energy Association, Hermann Albers, of the ARD.

However, the pace of expansion must be accelerated significantly.

It is undisputed that more ecological electricity, more renewable electricity from wind power is needed.

From the point of view of many parties, a significantly accelerated expansion of renewable energies is necessary so that more stringent climate targets can be achieved.

Long planning and approval procedures, insufficiently designated areas and many lawsuits are seen as obstacles.

Expansion speed steadily reduced

In 2020, there were 420 onshore wind turbines in Germany with a total output of 1,431 megawatts.

This made 2020 the second weakest expansion year since the introduction of the Renewable Energy Sources Act in 2000 - after 2019, when a low was reached.

The expansion of offshore plants, i.e. offshore wind energy, is also stalling.

The capacities in the North Sea, i.e. the output of the wind turbines installed there, stagnate at 6.68 gigawatts.

For the first time in many years, there will be no new wind turbines at sea in 2021.

From the middle and above all towards the end of this decade, the industry expects an "increased to very strong expansion".

The federal government aims to expand to 20 gigawatts by 2030 and to 40 gigawatts by 2040.

The network operator Tennet warned that an expansion of wind energy at sea is important for the security of supply and a successful energy transition.

"Especially in years with less wind, the ratio of generated wind energy shifts towards offshore," said Tennet managing director Tim Meyerjürgens.

"There we generate around twice as many full-load hours on average as onshore and can thus partially compensate for lulls on land."

The wind power plants in the North Sea delivered significantly less electricity in the first half of the year than in the same period of the previous year due to the weather.

However, because periods of calm depressed the wind energy yield on land even more, the share of North Sea electricity in total German wind power generation rose to 16.6 (previous year: 15.6) percent in the period from January to June, according to the network operator Tennet.

Germany's total offshore wind yield in the North and Baltic Seas was around 11.5 terawatt hours in the first half of 2021.

mmq / dpa

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2021-07-27

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