Offshore Wind Energy: Federal Government Slows Down Further Momentum

Last year, 156 offshore wind turbines with an output of 818 megawatts fed into the grid in Germany for the first time. At the end of 2016, a total of 947 plants with a total output of 4,108 megawatts were on the grid. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Offshore-Windenergie (AGOW), the Bundesverband Wind Energie (BWE), the Stiftung Offshore-Windenergie, VDMA Power Systems and the wind energy agency WAB rate the expansion of the past year positively. Electricity generation from offshore wind energy was around 13 terawatt hours in 2016. This corresponds to an increase of almost 57 percent compared to 2015 with 8.3 terawatt hours. This means that offshore wind energy continues to establish itself in the German electricity mix and supplies around 3 million households with electricity. This corresponds approximately to the number of all households in Berlin and Brandenburg.A further 21 plants with a total output of 123 megawatts were fully built last year and are currently being connected to the grid. The expansion at sea will run continuously with around 1.4 gigawatts in 2017 and thereafter with an average of around 1 gigawatt per year until 2019.

Cost reduction is also coming in Germany

The latest results of the tenders in Denmark and the Netherlands show that the costs decrease with corresponding project volumes. This is also to be expected in Germany, even if the conditions in the countries mentioned are not transferable to Germany one-to-one: the duration and the volume of services, which have a significant impact on the project costs of the wind farms, vary. In contrast to Germany, operators in Denmark and the Netherlands also do not have to bear the costs for the transformer platform themselves. In addition, the projects are much closer to the coast and in shallower water, which means lower costs.

2020 and 2021: Reduced expansion volume burdens industry

The number of around 20,000 jobs in the industry is expected to remain stable for the time being. The focus is shifting somewhat towards the maintenance and operation of existing wind energy projects. The situation of the industry becomes foreseeable critically with a view to the years 2021 and 2022, for which the Federal Government has restricted the addition to 500 megawatts each. The reduction in the expansion volume and the rigid determination of the annual quantities will burden the added value of the offshore wind industry in Germany due to the long lead time of production in the next few years. This overshadows the positive changes to the EEG 2017 in December, such as the extension of the permitted operating time of the plants beyond the EEG funding period to 25 years.

Four collapses in four weeks

Nevertheless, wind turbines are among the safest structures

Network connection necessary for investment security

Reliable political framework conditions and substantial expansion volumes are necessary so that the offshore wind industry can achieve further cost reductions in Germany. This includes rapid network expansion at sea and on land. The industry supports the federal government, the states and the network operators as much as possible. (br)

Article files and article links

File: Factsheet_Status_Offshore-Windenergieausbau_Jahr_2016.pdf