Merkel opens Baltic鈥檚 largest offshore wind farm as industry warns against slow-down
Ten years after Germany opened its first offshore wind farm in the North Sea, Chancellor Angela Merkel has opened the country鈥檚 newest offshore power station, demonstrating that early doubts about the technology were largely unfounded. In her weekly video podcast, Merkel said she was opening the project聽to make clear聽鈥渉ow important the expansion of renewable energy is for us.鈥�
The Arkona wind farm, named after a nearby cape on the island of R眉gen, where Merkel鈥檚 constituency is located, was built over the course of three years at a and is the Baltic鈥檚 largest. It is operated by energy companies E.ON from Germany and Equinor from Norway, which is why Merkel was accompanied by Norwegian energy minister Kjell-Borge Freiberg at the ceremony. With a capacity of 385 megawatts, the park consisting of 60 turbines by manufacturer Siemens-Gameas was built 35 kilometres off the coast and could theoretically supply about 400,000 German homes with electricity, Equinor.
Merkel the Arkona wind farm was setting a new standard for the transformation of Germany鈥檚 energy system in the Energiewende. Renewables had become Germany's most important source of electricity. "This shows that renewables have left their niche and now take centre stage in our energy supply," she argued. 鈥淏ut only changing the way we produce energy won鈥檛 be enough,鈥� the Chancellor said, adding that changes in the heating and in the transport sector were also forthcoming, although progress there was much more difficult to achieve.
The wind farm, operated by the utility E.ON, comes at a time when the German government is under pressure to formulate a clear climate policy. German students have been staging weekly 鈥淔ridays for Future鈥� school strikes, demanding more action on climate change, and some lawmakers have worried aloud that many future voters could turn their back on the governing parties if Merkel鈥檚 government does not act.
At the same time, lawmakers run the risk of alienating voters in mining regions as they strive to implement the seminal agreement from the nation鈥檚 coal exit commission, announced this winter. The commission recommended ending coal-fired power generation by 2038 at the latest, and some voters fear their jobs are being sacrificed to fulfill national climate targets. "We must avoid the impression that our society is being split into one group that lives off and with future-proof power generation and another one that carries all the burden," Merkel said in her inauguration speech, adding that "we must give great priority to this debate."
But the expansion of renewable power sources also starts to bring about progress in emissions reduction. Merkel鈥檚 inauguration of the wind farm comes just days after Germany鈥檚 environmental agency, UBA, announced that the country鈥檚 carbon emissions had declined substantially in 2018. It was the steepest emissions drop in ten years - and it was made possible in part,by the growth of offshore wind. 鈥淭here used to be a great deal of scepticism at the beginning of the offshore era,鈥� J枚rg Buddenberg of energy company EWE told news agency dpa in an聽聽carried by newspaper S眉ddeutsche Zeitung. Buddenberg said early critics argued that the previously unexplored technology would never work.
While offshore wind had to surmount several technical difficulties in its initial stage, Germany now has more than 1,300 operational turbines at sea with a combined capacity of 6.4 gigawatts (GW). Offshore wind farms聽聽(TWh) of electricity in 2018. That's about twice the average output per installation of their onshore counterparts, adding up to nearly one fifth of the country鈥檚 total wind power generation.
But the wind industry says the technology鈥檚 potential still is not fully appreciated, calling for the government to聽raise the country鈥檚 offshore wind expansion target聽from 15 to 20 GW by 2030 and to 30 GW by 2035. Offshore wind lobby group BWO聽 that without the higher targets the government goal of 65 percent renewable power consumption cannot be achieved.聽聽research institute聽Fraunhofer IWES, Germany聽could potentially install up to 54 GW听辞蹿 offshore wind power and generate nearly 260 TWh of electricity at sea. An expansion of that magnitude has drawn skepticism from environmentalists, who worry that turning large swathes of Germany鈥檚 territorial waters into industrial zones聽could have grave consequences聽for already strained ecosystems in the North and Baltic Seas.
The wind lobby鈥檚 calls for greater expansion have been supported by a substantial decrease in the cost of offshore wind power, with the average generation costs per kilowatt hour (kWh) dropping from over 14 cents in 2013 to a聽. Several zero-support bids in Germany鈥檚 first offshore wind power auctions have further supported the conviction that the technology has vast potential for a cost-efficient energy transition.
But wind power companies and lobby group BWE have complained about the cost pressure created by the auction scheme. In what had been one of the biggest setbacks for a German wind company,聽turbine producer Senvion filed for insolvency聽in April. While the company鈥檚 demise was seen as partly due to managerial mistakes, news agency Reuters noted that cost pressure meant it could no longer compete with companies that have greater pricing power, such as German-Spanish Siemens Gamesa or Danish Vestas. Newspaper WirtschaftsWoche聽聽despite growing wind power capacity around the world, small and middle-sized companies like Senvion or its fellow German turbinemakers Nordex and Enercon could increasingly face insurmountable difficulties 鈥� especially with Chinese companies hoping to make an entry into the German wind power market similar to China's takeover in the solar industry.
Wind power lobby group BWE says international market pressure is not the only obstacle, arguing that also poses an increasing challenge. Rising local resistance to new onshore projects is compounded by uncertainties following the switch to Germany鈥檚 renewables auction system. That means that reaching the climate and renewables expansion targets becomes increasingly uncertain, BWE says. In Bavaria, the BWE聽, a strict implementation of the so-called 10H-rule, which stipulates that turbines have to maintain a distance of ten times their height to the next residential area, means that the expansion in the state 鈥渉as been throttled down to almost zero.鈥�
The 10H-rule established in Bavaria has also been mulled by other state governments in a bid to ease resistance against wind power projects. Germany's environment agency UBA warned that a limit of only 1,000 metres, which would not even be enough for many of the new powerful but also very high turbines,聽 would reduce the land available for turbines by 20 to 50 percent. This would render a sufficient expansion of wind power to meet Germany's climate targets 鈥�almost impossible鈥�.
