Germany set to boost its offshore wind energy sector
Date: 03-Oct-02
Country: GERMANY
Author: Vera Eckert
Already the world's leading onshore wind energy producer with 10,000 megawatt (MW) of capacity, Germany has plans to add 25,000 MW to offshore capacity by 2030 from a current zero.
An official at BSH, the authority handling planning applications, told Reuters that out of 30 pending applications, the 240 megawatt (MW) Butendieck North Sea wind park planned to be built from 2005 had made the quickest progress.
"There'll be another discussion in October on this project," said Christian Dahlke, lawyer at BSH, the Hamburg-based national Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency.
"Without wanting to pre-empt the outcome I can say that if there are no major objections, we could soon make a decision."
The Butendieck wind park would be 30 kilometres off the north-west German coast near Denmark, owned by a pool of private investors and split into 80 turbines of three MW each.
BSH gave building permission last November for the 1,000 MW Borkum-West project 45 kilometres off the German/Dutch North Sea coast, where construction is due to start next year.
Local engineering firm elexyr said many technical and commercial firms would be encouraged by Butendieck approval.
"It would show that the political will is there, the industry crucially depends on official approval," said elexyr's managing director Klaus-Peter Lehmann.
"Only with this official backing can we clarify financial and insurance questions, which are the preconditions for further steps and for the actual realisation of projects," he said.
SUPPORT, CHALLENGES
Germany's newly re-elected Social-Democrat-Green coalition favours the rapid expansion of wind power to bring down greenhouse gases emissions, which many scientists say contribute to damaging global warming.
The sector, which already employs 40,000, benefits from higher revenue guarantees for its input into the general electricity grid than those earned from conventional power.
These costs are borne pro rata by all German utilities, then passed on to consumers.
BSH's Dahlke said that apart from Butendieck, another four out of the 30 North Sea and Baltic Sea long-term applications for a total 60,000 MW had made encouraging progress.
But elexyr's Lehmann said the next major challenge was to secure financing for the projects in an untested industry.
"Financing volumes can be up to 1.5 billion euros ($1.48 billion) for the new projects with hundreds of 3-5 MW turbines each (the biggest onshore ones so far have 2.5 MW)," he said.
A study issued by elexyr jointly with consultancy Oevermoehle C&M said several key issues needed to be resolved before financing could be drawn in.
There was only limited experience with the construction and running of deep sea turbines far offshore. Operators needed to gauge environmental costs and sort out efficient sea cables and grid connections on land, the study said.
The sector also needed to ensure it did not run into conflicts with other users of the sea - shipping, fisheries, oil and gas exploration, the military and tourism.
