Record German Wind Power

Record German Wind Power Lifts Renewable Share Over ’20 Goal

By Rachel Morison - Dec 5, 2013 12:05 PM ET 
            

Record output from wind farms lifted Germany’s share of renewable electricity production above its 2020 target of 35 percent today as a storm from Scandinavia battered the nation’s northern coast.

 

A low pressure system dubbed Xaver, with hurricane-force winds of more than 140 kilometers (87 miles) an hour, hit the northern coastline of Germany today, according to the country’s weather service. Electricity produced by sun and wind supplied 27.2 gigawatts, or 36 percent, of Germany’s power at 1 p.m. Berlin time, according to the European Energy Exchange AG.

Germany is already Europe’s biggest producer of electricity from wind and sun and its newly formed coalition government agreed last month to get as much as 45 percent of electricity from renewables by 2025. The share of power from wind and solar rose to 49 percent on Nov. 9, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The average share of renewables in Germany across the whole of last year was 22 percent.

“Germany might already be meeting its 2020 target for some hours, but it would need a lot more installed capacity to average 35 percent over a year,” Gary Keane, principal consultant at Poeyry Oyj, an adviser to governments and utilities, said by phone from Oxford, England.

Wind output in Germany hit a record of 25.2 gigawatts at 1:45 p.m. and will account for 39 percent of supply at 11 p.m., according to EEX data.

Forced Shutdown

The strength of the storm forced turbines to shut down in some parts of Germany. The 48-megawatt Baltic 1 offshore wind farm operated by Karlsruhe-based EnBW Energie Baden-Wuerttemberg AG (EBK) automatically halted operations at 1 p.m. when winds became too strong, Friederike Eckstein, a spokeswoman, said by phone.

“Wind turbines can start to cut out when wind goes above 60 miles an hour, so with a storm there is an increased risk of that happening,” said Keane.

German power for tomorrow declined 10.3 percent to 30.79 euros ($42.05) a megawatt hour on the Epex Spot exchange in Paris at 5:22 p.m. That’s 38.63 euros lower than the same contract in neighboring France which settled at 69.42 euros a megawatt hour, the data show.

Wind and solar power are given priority access to the grid in Germany, meaning peaks in production can force coal and gas-fed plants to reduce their output. The proportion of power produced from conventional plants is expected to fall to 61 percent at 11 p.m., compared with 79 percent at 7 a.m. today, according to EEX data.

“The storm will also bring heavy gusts of wind to the Netherlands, Denmark and Poland until tomorrow afternoon,” Andreas Gassner, meteorologist at MMInternational, said by e-mail from Appenzell, Switzerland. “Denmark and Poland could see as much as 15 gigawatts of wind until early on Monday.”

Audubon report says wind turbines, wildlife can coexist in Maine

Seth Koenig, Bangor Daily News

Thursday, December 5, 2013 at 11:50 am

FALMOUTH — One of Maine’s top wildlife advocacy groups says there’s plenty of room in the state to accommodate animal habitat and wind energy development.

Photo: Gabor Degre / BDN

One of the 38 windmills on Stetson Mountain in Township 8 Range 3.

In a report released Wednesday night, Maine Audubon found that of the 1.1 million acres in the state where there’s enough wind to justify turbines, 933,000 acres don’t overlap with sensitive natural areas and could be developed with little impact to Maine’s wildlife.

About 45 percent, or 418,000 acres, of the space with both adequate wind and low wildlife impact is found in the state’s expedited permitting areas designated for wind projects, stated the report written by wildlife biologist Susan Gallo.

The study comes as wind energy continues to receive steady attention in Maine, with the Board of Environmental Protection on Thursday scheduled to hear an appeal of an approved wind farm slated for Hancock County and some lawmakers still upset over the recent decision by Norwegian energy giant Statoil to drop its offshore wind plans here.

Late last month, the organization Environment Maine issued its own report on wind energy, finding that Maine generated a New England-best 884,000 megawatt-hours of wind power in 2012, an amount that displaced nearly 535,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel plants.

Maine Audubon's 34-page report on wind energy’s potential conflict with the state’s wildlife found that, for the most part, it doesn’t.

The organization stressed that each proposed development site be reviewed individually for possible impacts on bird and animal species, but that in a general sense, there is a lot of room in Maine for wind farms to be erected without intruding on sensitive habitats.

As a result, the report stressed, there should be no reason why wind development takes place where it significantly affects wildlife.

“We recommend that any land-based wind development in the mountainous areas of northern and western Maine and along our coast be carefully studied,” the report stated, in part. “These regions stand out as areas with a lot of wind and wildlife resource overlap.”

Given current technology, Maine Audubon reports that the state would need to see wind development on approximately 15 percent of the windy acreage that does not overlap with wildlife resources in order to meet state goals of reaching the 3,000-megawatt capacity of land-based wind energy by 2030.

That production would provide power for between 675,000 and 900,000 homes, and would entail the construction of 600 more wind turbines, the report concluded.

Opponents of the wind energy buildout in Maine, including the group Friends of Maine Mountains, have argued that the turbines blemish the state’s pristine mountain ranges and are not as effective as other renewable energy sources, such as hydropower.
Maine Audubon acknowledged the concerns of wind power opponents and stated its findings did not eliminate the need for site-by-site reviews that take those concerns into account.

“The location and siting of wind developments is a complex issue, and while there is a broad array of important concerns – impacts to the local economy, tourism, outdoor recreation, regional power supplies, local residents, and scenic views – Maine Audubon has always focused its concern on wildlife and habitat,” the report stated.

Berlin energy demonstration

Berlin energy demonstration attended by 16,000

• 
  As estimated 16,000 protestors attended the event. Image: http://www.erneuerbare-jetzt.de
•  
  Daniel Kluge of BEE said he felt the event sent a “good signal to the new government”. Image: http://www.erneuerbare-jetzt.de

An estimated 16,000 protestors attended a demonstration in Berlin on Saturday, aimed at ‘saving’ Germany's Energiewende renewable energy policy from possible attack by the incoming coalition government.

Demonstrators marched under the united slogan “Save Energy Revolution: The sun and wind instead of fracking, coal and nuclear” as they attempted to get across a message of increasing renewable energy capacity and energy efficiency to lawmakers. The event included a symbolic protest on the lawn of the Reichstag.

While some commentators were pleased that the coalition deal struck between Angela Merkel’s union of Christian conservative parties and the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) included ‘bandwidth’ targets for renewable energy generation, others felt the coalition deal would slow down the introduction of renewable energy capacity.

German Renewable Energy Association (BEE) spokesman Daniel Kluge attended the event. Kluge told PV Tech that the turnout was remarkable considering the weather was fairly poor and that the estimated turnout of 16,000 far exceeded the 5,000 to 10,000 protestors BEE had hoped to see.

Kluge described the event as colourful and while attendees marched under the banners of different organisations, all were unified by the one goal of persuading the German government to “enforce the exit of coal and nuclear”. Kluge said he felt the event sent a “good signal to the new government” and with “hard months” of uncertainty expected to lie ahead, the unity of different organisations coming together was very important.

Organisations involved in the demonstration included anti-nuclear group Ausgestrahlt, Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), Greenpeace, representatives from companies including wind turbine manufacturer Enercom and associations for wind, solar and biogas industries. Democratic action website Campact, which bundles petitions and is used as a tool to mobilise campaigns, also hosted a petition.

Kluge said that despite the difficult political situation expected to face supporters of the Energiewende in coming months, the mood on the day was very positive. He also said that the timing of the demonstration to take place three days after the coalition deal was announced was also a coincidence that was “timed perfectly”. The agreed coalition deal has yet to be approved by the members of the SPD, who will decide its fate in a ballot on 15 December.

250 Million Litres Of Toxins Every Day

What do Niagara Falls and the tar sands have in common?

Every day 250 million litres of toxic liquid waste is generated by the tar sands. That’s about as much water as pours over Niagara Falls in 90 seconds.

Big Oil is spending millions of dollars to greenwash the tarsands. It’s time for a much-needed reality check. Canadians deserve the truth about water and the tar sands. Watch our new video, Reality Check: Water and the Tar Sands, which sets the record straight. 

 

Want to know more? Check out our report: Reality Check: Water and the Tar Sands.

German Fossil Fuel Power Plants To Shut Down

Unable To Compete, German Fossil Fuel Power Plants To Shut Down

by John Johnston on 08/19/2013

in Business,Politics,Technology

In a recent report released by RWE, the second largest electricity producer in Germany, the company has confirmed it is planning to withdraw 3.1 gigawatts of fossil fuel generating capacity from the electricity market.

RWE maintains that because there is a growing amount of renewable energy in Germany’s energy mix, wholesale energy prices have declined, so the company would be losing money if it had to sell power at the lower prices. A RWE statement explains, “Due to the continuing boom in solar energy, many power stations throughout the sector and across Europe are no longer profitable to operate. During the first half of 2013, the Conventional Power Generation Division’s operating result fell by almost two-thirds”.

The fossil fuel plants that are being talked about are not new plants, they are power plants that have already paid back the initial investment of building them, so it goes to show just how unviable they have become in the emerging era of renewable energy. Building new fossil fuel plants is all but out of the question these days.
Image CC licensed by Jim Winstead: Rooftop solar panels in Germany.
via Cleantechnica

Emus

Relax - wind farms aren't stressing out your emus

The Drum

By Simon Chapman

Posted Wed 27 Nov 2013, 3:28pm AEDT

Photo: Emus wander near a wind turbine in Victoria. (Supplied)    
 

What links the phenomena of allegedly stressed emus, dancing cattle and disoriented echidnas? Nothing but the ill-founded trend to blame anything and everything on wind farms, writes Simon Chapman.
 

Last week in Nova Scotia, the Canadian Atlantic province where midwinter temperatures fall to -20 degrees celsius, a small emu farm closed down. There's nothing unusual about this. Investment in emu farming was an ill-fated get-rich-quick bubble that burst in Canada over a decade ago. It has been described as a "failed industry".

But what made this sad story even sadder was that the husband and wife team behind it blamed the closure on wind turbines, saying they had seen many of their birds lose weight and die of "stress". Tellingly, no necropsies were performed, prompting one person to comment, "So they didn't have necropsies performed on any of the animals? That is extremely irresponsible farming. The department of Agriculture should be called in to inspect for animal cruelty."

As the picture illustrating this story shows, in Australia, where emus don't tend to be kept in pens and fed on pellets, the birds roam freely around turbines, among sheep and cattle.

But this morning in my email, a jubilant anti-wind-farm activist from rural NSW used the emu story to undermine the idea that wind-farm health complaints might be explained by negative thoughts about wind-farms, known as the "nocebo effect":

We were was also wondering if you know how the 'nocebo effect' works in emus? Is it a communicated disease and just how do the emus spread the word? Do you think if they paid the emus they may not have had a problem?

Nice try. But no cigar. Because if you peer just below the surface of these claims, there are obvious unanswered questions about effects on animals.

My ever-expanding collection of (now) 234 diseases and symptoms attributed to wind turbines includes many about animals. Some of the more interesting ones include reports of "dancing cattle" ("Cattle have been videotaped 'dancing' or lifting hooves repetitively from being shocked by electrical voltage in the ground" said to be leaking from wind turbines); bee extinction; a farmer opining that echidnas are disoriented by turbines, causing them to "dig up more soil looking for food than before and that they could pinpoint the location of their food source much more accurately back then (before turbines were installed)"; and the death of "more than 400 goats" on an outlying Taiwanese island.

Four hundred is a nice big number for goats, and oddly enough, it's the same number of goats that allegedly "dropped dead" in New Zealand! In Wisconsin, too, a farmer claims he lost most of his cattle herd after turbines were installed. Anti-wind-farm websites are awash with these astonishing claims that seem to have escaped the relevant authorities. Try searching for any official corroboration in government or official investigations and you'll be looking for a long time.

As anyone with even a passing familiarity with farming knows, mass or unusual deaths in livestock are of intense interest to governments because of concerns about infectious diseases with the potential to devastate the farming sector and export trade, or even lead to animal to human transmission. Concern about diseases like brucellosis, avian influenza and hendra virus see authorities isolate farms and destroy all remaining stock. Massive publicity follows. But when 400 goats unaccountably "drop dead" or a farmer reports lots of dead emus, these same government authorities are nowhere to be seen. It must be a conspiracy of silence.

All of the problems the anti's claim that wind turbines cause in humans occur in every community, regardless of whether they are near wind farms or not. Forty-five per cent of people report symptoms of insomnia at least once a week. Anxiety and depression are widespread. Getting old? Hair turning grey or receding? Eyesight, hearing, balance problems increasing with age? Putting on or losing weight? You need to know that all of these problems are apparently caused by wind turbines.

Many of the claims about animals fall into the same category. Yolkless eggs and those without shells are phenomena known to every poultry farmer, as this advisory site shows. But when such eggs are lain by chickens belonging to someone who doesn't like wind farms then Robert's your father's brother, it can only have been caused by the dastardly turbines! Dogs, horses, sheep, cattle, getting listless, skitty, off their food ... or anything really: wind turbines are to blame.

Every day in every country, thousands of people are diagnosed for the first time with one of countless health problems. They weren't having the symptoms that drove them to the doctor a few months ago, and now they have the diagnosis, they start thinking about what might have caused it. If they don't like the look of wind farms, or have been exposed to scary tales about all the things that can happen, and live near a wind farm, then the post hoc ergo propter hoc (after therefore because of) heuristic can powerfully kick in to make sense of the new problem.

Eighteen years ago, Australian news media were awash with stories of community panics about mobile telephone towers being likely to cause cancers. These never eventuated, with the age-adjusted incidence of almost all cancers in Australia flat-lining. Today, there are occasional reprises of this hysteria, but with the ubiquity of mobile phones, familiarity has calmed the situation. The current fringe hysteria about wind farms is likely to go the same way.

Simon Chapman AO is professor of Public Health at the University of Sydney and 2013 Australian Skeptic of the Year. View his full profile here.

Germany Hits 59% Renewable Peak

Germany Hits 59% Renewable Peak, Grid Does Not Explode

Electricity prices plunge to 2.75 cents per kilowatt-hour as renewable energy dominates on Germany’s Reunification Day.

Eric Wesoff
October 30, 2013

Wind and solar power peaked at 59.1 percent of German power generation earlier this month. It happened at noon on a very windy and sunny October 3, which is the German holiday commemorating reunification. (Germany also hit peaks of 61 percent, a record, and 59 percent earlier this year.)

Solar and wind provided 36.4 percent of total electricity generation over the entire day, with PV accounting for 11.2 percent.
 
The electrical grid appears intact but electricity prices took a tumble. According to an analysis by Bernard Chabot of BCCONSULT, low demand from large conventional power plants drove the electricity price index covering Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland to 2.75 cents per kilowatt-hour at 2:00 p.m.

Some additional stats from Chabot's report about Germany's power mix on October 3:

• Solar and wind furnished a total of more than 436 gigawatt-hours.
• At peak, solar furnished 20.5 gigawatts, with wind peaking at 16.6 gigawatts.
• Conventional power plants had to ramp down to 23 gigawatts at about noon.

We recently reported on an NREL study specific to one U.S. regional grid (the Western Interconnection), which found the costs of backing up and integrating wind and solar are far smaller than the benefits accrued from the use of renewables. We've reported on the ways in which the traditional utility model is under threat from renewables. And we've heard from grid experts who see the European grid as strained and soon to be challenged by the onslaught of renewables.

Wind Integration in Denmark

Postcard From the Grid’s Future: Record-Breaking Wind Integration in Denmark

Think the U.S. can’t handle high levels of wind? Denmark has been doing it for years.

Renewable electricity records are falling every day. In early October, Germany recently hit a 59 percent renewable peak, Colorado utility Xcel Energy peaked at 60 percent wind at the beginning of the year, and Spain got its top power supply from wind for three months leading into 2013.

But that’s chump change compared with Denmark. According to data from Energinet, the national grid operator, wind power has produced 30 percent of gross power consumption to date in 2013. This includes over 90 hours where wind produced more than all of Denmark’s electricity needs, peaking at 122 percent on October 28, at 2:00 a.m.

And Denmark has plans to get to 50 percent more wind by 2020, creating even bigger hourly peaks. Energinet predicts the country may hit as many as 1,000 hours per year of power surplus.

To champions of renewables, this is validation that a clean energy future is possible and that the transition is already underway. These regions also give insight into what is to come in the U.S., and what needs to change to keep a reliable and affordable power system as clean energy grows.

As part of America’s Power Plan, we have developed a series of “postcards from the future,” describing places like Denmark that are already grappling with a high-renewables future.

Studies and real-world experience are underscoring that there are many tactics available to deal with the variability of wind and solar, and that these tactics are largely substitutes for each other.

While energy storage comes to mind first for many people, the truth is that the grid has functioned just fine with very little storage. Power system operators have to deal with variability all the time, with or without renewables. Demand fluctuates with the weather, time of day, social activities, and industrial operations. And supply varies unexpectedly too, such as when a power plant breaks down. The fluctuations of wind and solar, especially at moderate levels, are just one more variable -- one that may or may not add to overall variability, depending on the system and timing.

Power system engineers use a whole suite of tools to match supply and demand, both minute-to-minute and over longer time frames. The most obvious example is a dispatchable power plant, like a gas turbine. But they also benefit from bigger balancing areas (trading power with neighbors), more transmission connections to reduce congestion, faster-acting fossil power plants, direct load control and demand response, targeted energy efficiency, and curtailment of wind and solar plants.

Hydro power and even fossil fuels are the traditional forms of energy storage, but many more are emerging, such as using power to heat district heating systems, compressed air, batteries and flywheels, and charging electric cars during the renewable peak.

It is increasingly common to treat wind power as a controllable generator, rather than just letting it go full out. System operators in New York, Texas and the Midwest direct wind farm owners to submit five-minute forecasts of output, and ramp up and down if necessary to meet system demands, just like conventional generators. The Midwest ISO enforces this with a “dispatchable intermittent tariff.”

So how can Denmark be 122 percent wind-powered? Where does the extra power go?
Denmark is part of an integrated regional grid with the Scandinavian countries and parts of Germany. They have a constant trade with utilities in the region, especially hydro plants in Norway.

As renewables grow and as Denmark attempts to phase out fossil fuels altogether by 2050, the country is aggressively adopting smart grid technologies, leading Europe in research and demonstration projects on a per-capita basis. The island of Bornholm will be a test bed, with extensive smart grid and renewable energy deployment. Demand response is beginning to grow, though in a different form than in the US. Denmark also has big goals for electric cars, and has exempted them from the 180 percent sales tax applied to gas and diesel vehicles.

But conventional solutions will be the first solution through better grid links between countries. As Germany’s Agora Energiewende has put it in its 12 Insights report, “Grids are cheaper than storage facilities.” More grid connections allow surplus power to be shipped off rather than curtailed or stored. Larger balancing areas reduce the variability of wind and solar across a wider geographic area. Agora thinks storage will only be necessary when renewables constitute 70 percent of total supply.

As in the U.S., European regulators are grappling with policies to integrate large amounts of renewables. While technical issues remain, they are not really new, only of a larger scale. Most of the integration tools are known; they just need to be bigger and more capable to deal with bigger variations.

Less known are the policy issues. How big should control areas be? How much should be invested in transmission lines, and who should pay for them? What is the relative value of energy payments, versus capacity payments or ancillary services? Most of all, how should we pay for the services we need to keep the lights on?

In America’s Power Plan, Mike Hogan of the Regulatory Assistance Project calls for aligning power markets with clean energy goals, giving proper incentives for market flexibility.

With 2020 just around the corner, it will be instructive to see how Denmark deals with getting half its electricity from the wind. What will the country do with a 200 percent wind day?

***
Bentham Paulos is the project manager for America’s Power Plan.
Author's note: A number of system operators have put their real-time data online and in iPhone apps, so you can track hourly progress on renewables.
Energinet (Denmark): Real time map and historical data
National Grid’s NETA (England): Data sources
California ISO: Daily demand graph and iPhone app
ISO New England: Guest dashboard
Midwest ISO: Contour pricing map

Renewables more affordable than nuclear in Ontario

Pembina Institute and Greenpeace report: Renewables more affordable than nuclear in Ontario

Solar PV and wind power can avoid the cost overruns associated with large nuclear projects, says a Greenpeace, Pembina report. Image: Darlington Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario (CNWC/CCTN)

According to a new report by Pembina Institute (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) and Greenpeace, Ontario’s government is urged to review its nuclear commitments in the next long-term energy plan, as its grid electricity demand is projected to drop back to 1992 levels by 2022.
 

The report, titled “Renewable is Doable: Affordable and flexible options for Ontario's long-term energy plan”, reveals that investing in a portfolio of renewable energy options is a more cost-effective way to meet the Canadian province’s evolving energy needs, as green electricity sources like solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind power can avoid the cost overruns associated with large nuclear projects.
 

“New nuclear reactors would be providing Ontario with power it doesn’t need at a price it can’t afford,” stated Tim Weis, Director of Renewable Energy and Efficiency Policy, Pembina Institute.

 

Renewables more cost-effective than large nuclear projects

Past forecasts have overestimated Ontario’s demand for electricity in the coming decade. Therefore the province’s government would better serve electricity ratepayers if it does not include new unnecessary nuclear reactors, and reviews alternatives to repairing the province’s aging reactors, the report shows.
 

Ontario’s current long-term energy plan arbitrarily commits to generating 50% of its electricity with nuclear, regardless of both the financial and environmental costs, while removing this requirement from the next energy plan would allow more affordable green alternatives to compete with nuclear power, shows the report.

Germany sets world record

Germany sets world record for monthly solar PV output at 5.1 TWh in July 2013

German PV production in July 2013 was 42% higher than a year prior

The German Federal Association of Electricity and Water (BDEW) reports that the nation's solar photovoltaic (PV) plants produced more than 5.1 TWh in July 2013, a new record for the nation and the world.
 

This represents a 19% increase over the previous record of 4.3 TWh in June 2013, and a 42% increase from July 2012. It is also nearly double the output of Italy in July 2013, which has the second-largest capacity of installed PV globally.

 

German beats Italy in percentage of power from PV
 

As BDEW has not supplied demand figures for July 2013, it is not known what percentage of German demand was met with PV. However, given historical demand figures it is clear that PV output exceeded 10% of demand, likely falling at 12-13% of demand during the month. This puts Germany at an even higher portion of demand met with PV generation than Italy in July 2013.
 

Wind only produced 1.7 TWh hours during the month, down 41% year-over-year, as fossil fuel generation increased 14%. The nation also exported 70 GWh of electricity during the month.
 

Certain times in the month featured particularly high solar output. PV plants produced 179-204 GWh each day in the third week of July, which represented from 14.2% to 21.5% of production on a daily basis.

Fossil-fueled power plants are estimated to kill 17 times more birds than wind energy

 

Courtesy: TN Valley Infrastructure Group

As addressed in an earlier post, wind energy does not cause population level threats to birds and accounts for an extremely small percentage of unnatural avian mortality. In fact, wind energy (void of air and water pollution) is considered to be one of the lowest-impact electricity resources. Even though major bird conservation groups and ornithological experts recognize the importance of a wind energy future, bird impacts with wind turbines remains a major talking point for wind power opponents. So, who is behind this misinformation campaign against wind energy and why?

It might come as no surprise that many anti-renewable energy studies and articles are funded by fossil fuel power lobbyists. The American wind industry’s recent cost-competitive success caused it to become the number one source of new U.S. electric generating capacity in 2012 (now representing over 60,000 megawatts of energy). Last year, The Guardian released a confidential memo providing evidence that fossil-fuel funded groups were strategizing together to build a movement of wind energy farm protestors here in the United States. William I. Koch, billionaire investor in the fossil fuel industry, has spent over a decade protesting the Cape Wind project by spending over $5 million in an attempt to derail the project.

In an effort to fuel a movement against wind energy, many articles have surfaced that overstate the impacts wind turbines have on birds regardless of the facts. Last year the Washington Times published a misleading column by Paul Driessen of the Committee for Construction Tomorrow–a fossil-fuel funded group dedicated to disputing climate science. Deep pockets are fueling this misinformation surrounding wind turbines and birds in order to deter from the reality: fossil fuels are the greater energy threat to bird populations and could cause global extinctions.

A study in Energy Policy, found that  fossil-fueled power plants, on a per unit of energy basis, are estimated to kill 17 times more birds than wind energy. So for every megawatt hour of electricity from a wind farm that replaces fossil fuels, seventeen times as many birds may be saved. Another study provided by New York State Energy Research and Development Authority looked at six electricity generation types and their impacts on vertebrate wildlife. The research concluded that wind energy does not create a population-level threat to birds and, “non-renewable electricity generation sources, such as coal and oil, pose higher risks to wildlife than renewable electricity generation sources, such as hydro and wind.”

The dirty extraction process (not necessary with wind energy) associated with fossil fuel mining is one of the major causes of avian mortality. Coal mining creates a great threat to bird populations due to major habitat loss. According to the American Bird Conservancy, there were 1,200 mines found in the  Appalachia region from 1992-2002 and “…380,574 acres of forest habitat were destroyed for the purpose of mountaintop removal…”

Oilfield production is another threat to birds. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, “every year an estimated 500,000 to 1 million birds are killed in oilfield production skim pits, reserve pits, and in oilfield wastewater disposal facilities…” Over 1,500 migrating ducks were recently killed when they landed in a pollutant-filled reservoir linked to an Alberta oil sands facility.

Coal, oil, and other fossil fuel energy sources have major individual impacts on bird populations, but together these carbon-emitting fuels are the major driver of climate change–one of the greatest threats to bird populations according to a study by the National Wildlife Federation. The majority of American conservancy organizations recognize the link between fossil fuel energy and the impact global warming could have on bird populations across the country.

The Audubon Society concludes,

“Most of today’s rapidly growing demand for energy is now being met by natural gas and expanded coal-burning power plants, which are this country’s single greatest source of the greenhouse-gas emissions that cause global warming. If we don’t find ways to reduce these emissions, far more birds–and people–will be threatened by global warming than by wind turbines.” 

With this overwhelming evidence that fossil fuels are causing great damage to bird populations, it’s no wonder that the fossil fuel industry is desperate to point the finger somewhere else.

Wind energy, on the other hand, is a 100% clean energy source that is far less harmful to birds than the energy it displaces. In 2012, the electricity generated by wind energy helped to avoid 98.9 million metric tons of C02–equivalent to taking 17.4 million cars off the road. Looking past the anti-wind rhetoric and fossil fuel funded bias, it’s clear that wind energy has the opportunity to save more birds than it harms by displacing traditional energy sources and creating a healthier and cleaner environment.

Locals Petition to Save Town's Name

Waubra wind farm: locals petition to save town's name

By GAV MCGRATH           Nov. 5, 2013, 8 p.m.

 

PETITION: Doug Hobson says the focus of anti-wind-farm sentiment has tarnished Waubra’s reputation. PICTURE: JEREMY BANNISTER

A GROUP of Waubra residents say they don’t want the debate about wind turbines and health to end.

But they do want the name of their town left out of it.

Waubra residents have collected more than 300 signatures of people within the town and the wider community, calling on the Waubra Foundation to remove the name Waubra from its title.

The Waubra Foundation describes itself as a national organisation to conduct research into health problems identified by residents living near wind turbines.

The petition was sent to the Waubra Foundation last week.

Karen Molloy, one of the residents who started the petition, admits she does have wind towers on her own property.

However, she says, of the 315 signatories, only 28 actually host wind farms.
“We’ve collected over 300 signatures, including 179 from the Waubra community,” she says.

“The others are all people affiliated with the town, such as footballers and netballers, and people who used to live here.

“Even some people who weren’t for the wind towers were happy to sign. This is not about the towers, it is about the community and its reputation outside.

“The towers have been here for five years. It is time to get over it.”

Ten residents collected signatures for the petition.

One of them was Doug Hobson, who says the focus of anti-wind-farm sentiment on Waubra has tarnished the town’s reputation. He says most people in the town would describe it as a great place to live but a scan of the internet would not reveal that.

“Waubra is associated with wind towers. We don’t mind that,” he says.

“With the turbines people actually take more notice of our town as they pass through.

“But when you Google ‘Waubra’ the first thing that comes up is something negative about our town. People would think that everyone in Waubra doesn’t like wind farms, and that is not the case.”

Marcia and Kerryn Gallagher agree. “Even if there is a disease we’re campaigning for people to stop calling it Waubra disease and start calling it a wind turbine disease,” Marcia Gallagher says.

“I met some people who had come down from Queensland and they actually felt sorry for me because they thought I had some kind of disease.”

Kerryn Gallagher says the name Waubra Foundation is misleading.

“When you look at the word ‘foundation’, it is a strong word that means a strong base. So when the ‘foundation’ says we have an illness or sickness, people take it seriously and it’s wrong,” she says.

“We’re happy if they continue with their campaign against wind energy but we simply want our name back.”

Margaret McDonald says most people in Waubra would know someone in the town who has experienced health issues attributed to the wind towers.

She says those who organised the petition did not want to trivialise their concerns.
“We empathise with the people who feel that they are unwell,” she says.

“This not about the debate about wind farms. The debate will go on but we have to respect each other. We want to take the name Waubra out of the debate.”

Big Oil Whines About Big Wind

There They Go Again: Big Oil Whines About Big Wind

The wind wars are heating up again as Congress considers another extension of the production tax credit for wind power. The latest salvo is an open letter to federal legislators under the auspices of the American Energy Alliance,* an organization which seems to think that referring to the American wind industry as Big Wind is something other than a fart joke. We’ll get to the letter itself in a bit, but for now we’re more interested in the connection between AEA and our favorite climate change deniers, the Koch brothers.

Big Oil And Climate Change Denial

If you’ve been following the climate change denial lobby, you probably know until a few years ago one of the most notorious climate change deniers in the oil industry was Exxon Mobil. The company was a major funder of the lobbying organization Heartland Institute, a leading force in anti-climate management efforts.

Wind turbine by lamoix.
 

By 2007, Exxon Mobil was publicly disavowing its denialist position and the company cut ties to Heartland, but since then the Koch brothers have more than made up the difference (for those of you new to the topic, Koch Industries has been challenging climate management on a wide array of fronts).

As far as the relationship between AEA and the Koch brothers goes, while the organization is not required to disclose its sources, our friends over at SourceWatch have connected the dots for us.

According to SourceWatch, AEA was founded in 2008 by Thomas Pyle, who also serves as its current president. Pyle’s roots are in the petrochemical industries lobby, which includes work for Koch Industries.

Pyle is also the President of AEA’s sister organization, the Institute for Energy Research (IER), which according to a report by Greenpeace continues to receive both direct and indirect support from the Koch brothers.

They Write Letters

AEA’s anti-wind tax credit letter is brief and to the point, positioning itself as a grass roots effort with 100 signing organizations representing “millions of Americans.”
That positioning is reinforced by AEA’s website, which features the following warning on its home page…

Thanks to Big Wind the hidden cost of wind energy may get even MORE expensive.

…along with an exhortation to retweet the following message:

Big Wind’s tax credit already cost tax payers $12B and now they want more? Time to #EndtheWindGiveaway via @AEA

However, among the many grass roots style names on the list is a generous helping of “Big” organizations openly supported by the Koch brothers, including the 60 Plus Association, Americans for Prosperity, and Freedomworks.

As for those groups with grass roots-sounding names, it’s worth noting that several are Tea Party affiliates. Though positioning itself as a grass roots movement, the Tea Party is a corporate creature as revealed by a recent peer-reviewed study that examines the decades-long linkage between the use of astroturfing by the tobacco lobby, anti-climate management efforts, and Koch brothers funding, which resulted in the founding of the Tea Party in 2002.

The Tea Party affiliates on the list include the Greenfield Area Tea Party, the Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party, the Outer Banks Tea Party, the State Coordinator (OH) Tea Party Patriots, and the Georgia Tea Party, Inc.

We’re not saying that a few bad apples spoil the whole barrel, but if anyone out there is familiar with the money behind any other “grass roots” organizations on the list, feel free to drop us a note in the comment thread.

*Clarification: The American Energy Alliance is a signatory to the letter, which is part of an Americans for Prosperity project.

Climate change

Climate change action starts locally

Genevieve Barlow |  October 16, 2013

 

Last week I had a call from Neil Barrett, keen to tell me about his latest project.

Neil is a former educational video creator, now retired but with enormous energy for encouraging energy change.

He'd interviewed farmers and neighbours living in and around the Waubra wind farm who had no ill-feelings about the turbines.

He'd recorded the interviews and uploaded them to the Victorian Wind Alliance website,  a voice for supporters of more wind energy in Victoria.

His interview subjects talked about how hosting their turbines had in some cases boosted their incomes, didn't upset their chooks and had caused no sleeplessness or illness.

Further, a community fund created by the wind farm company, had helped community groups.

So I logged on to check out the videos and arrived first at a site called Stop These Things.

If tone is anything to go by, VicWind wins hands down ahead of STT for civility and transparency. It names the people behind the site, includes their pictures and brief biographies as well as a blog and the videos mentioned above and a phone number for people to contact. There is no such transparency on the other site.

It does not name the creators or writers of the website, merely declaring themselves "a kitchen table of concerned citizens". Nor does it include biographies or a phone number to contact.

Why not?

Lo and behold if that site didn't feature farmers and neighbours talking about how the wind farms had made their lives unbearable in some way or another and how they'd upset their chooks.

Its tone is angry and bitter and sarcastic.

In the meantime the urgency to act to stop humanity's output of greenhouse gases grows ever greater.

The most recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s scrutable report assessing the risk of human-induced climate change is loud and clear.

The September report told us that it's extremely likely humans have been the dominant cause of warming.

And, consequences of our continued greenhouse gas output include more frequent and longer-lasting heat waves.

Wet regions will receive more rainfall and dry regions will receive less, with some exceptions. Governments at national and state level in Australia are failing us when it comes to leading change on greenhouse gas reduction.

Big corporates, too cumbersome to move with the speed and efficiency now required, are also largely failing us.

So it's up to people to make change. At the local level, wind farms give us that opportunity.

They don't emit greenhouse gas when producing electricity as coal does.

They are an intelligent way for us to take responsibility for cutting our emissions.

Canberra-based developer Windlab Systems is working with the landholders of Coonooer Bridge, west of Wedderburn, to erect five turbines reaching to 150m.

The company says that while the project has much greater acceptance than other wind farms have had, not everyone is enamoured of the idea.

Yet it appears a feasible, respectful model for change at a local level. Arguments about the aesthetics of wind farms are valid, yet to block wind energy without taking substantive non-damaging steps to cut our greenhouse gas emissions makes us culpable, even worse, delinquent in our responsibilities as intelligent human beings.

Let's stop fiddling while Rome burns and get on with building them.

World's first climate refugee

Man from Kiribati seeks recognition as world's first climate refugee

Kiribati man Ioane Teitiota, asks court to recognise him and his family as climate change refugees

Kiribati is the world's lowest-lying nation whose 33 small islands are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels Photo: Alamy

 

By Jonathan Pearlman, Sydney

  

A man from a tiny South Pacific island has asked a court in New Zealand to recognise him and his family as climate change refugees, saying they face "serious harm" if they return.

 

Ioane Teitiota, 37, has applied for refuge from Kiribati, the world's lowest-lying nation whose 33 small islands are highly vulnerable to rising sea levels. Scientists say the nation is one of the countries likely to be hardest hit by global warming – and its own president has urged its citizens to leave.
 

Mr Teitiota, who has lived in New Zealand for six years and has three children born there, told the New Zealand High Court that there was no land to which his family could safely return. Kiribati, which has a population of about 100,000 and was part of former British colony the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, has an average height of 6.5 feet above sea level.
 

"There's no future for us when we go back to Kiribati," he told a tribunal. "Especially for my children. There's nothing for us there."
 

Mr Teitiota has appealed against an earlier tribunal decision which found his case was genuine, but did not fit the legal criteria for recognition as a refugee – such as fear of persecution or threats to his life. It is believed that if his appeal is successful he would become the world's first climate refugee.

His lawyer, Michael Kidd, said refugee laws were outdated and ill-equipped to deal with the looming catastrophe facing Kiribati.
 

"The refugee convention which came into effect at the end of the Second World War needs to be changed, to incorporate people who are fleeing climate catastrophe, and what's happening to Kiribati in the next 30 years is a catastrophe," he told Radio New Zealand.

Experts say Kiribati will become uninhabitable before it disappears under water and that the government needs to begin to plan for an orderly migration.

New Zealand and Australia have resisted calls to change their laws to recognise climate change refugees.

The High Court has reserved its decision.

Wind A GHG Fighter

Wind A Cost Cutter, GHG Fighter, Grid Study Says

by Pete Danko

There’s more evidence that integrating increasing amounts of wind power onto the nation’s power grids could not only go more smoothly than some have feared, it could also be a money saver.

The latest report comes from PJM (PDF available here), the grid operator for 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes region. The goal of the study that PJM organized was to look at “the operational, planning, and market effects of large-scale integration of wind power”

The PJM project team found that “even at 30% penetration, results indicate that the PJM system can handle the additional renewable integration with sufficient reserves and transmission build out.”

And if you think “sufficient reserves and transmission build out” is code for expensive back up and transmission infrastructure, that’s apparently not the case. The study found that transmission costs would be a small fraction of the value of the energy produced from renewables.

Indeed, the report said “the principal impacts of higher penetration of renewable energy into the grid include … lower systemwide production costs” and “lower wholesale customer energy costs.” All that, and “lower emissions of criteria pollutants and greenhouse gasses,” too.

As you might expect, the wind industry loved the study, with the American Wind Energy Association saying PJM’s work “confirms that wind energy is drastically decreasing both the price of electricity and emissions of harmful pollutants.”

The industry has had plenty of good news to point to recently. A recent update of the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, showed that ramping fossil-fuel generation up and down to accommodate more renewables reduced the carbon cutting benefits of wind (and solar) by only 0.2 percent, even at high renewable-energy penetration rates.

And researchers in Spain also reported that cycling doesn’t much hinder wind power’s ability to trim greenhouse gas emissions.

Britain's nuclear cost

Britain's nuclear cost bomb

Tristan Edis 30 Oct, 10:35

The UK government announced last week that it had reached a power purchase agreement with French firm EDF for the first new nuclear power plant to be built in the country in decades. This single project, known as Hinkley Point C and involving two European Pressurised Reactors, will be capable of producing 7 per cent of the UK’s entire power needs with close to zero carbon emissions.

 

Yet the really big news is that it finally gives us a clear and reliable indicator of the cost of power from a modern and safer third generation nuclear power plant, incorporating the decommissioning and nuclear waste management costs. The UK government has provided a 35-year guarantee for the plant to receive £92.50 per megawatt-hour, or about $156, adjusted upward annually with inflation.

By comparison, to get a new wind farm up in Australia requires in the realm of $100 per MWh, although exceptional wind speeds and Trustpower’s low cost of capital allowed Snowtown II to go ahead with a price in the realm of $85 per MWh. Also, such Australian projects don’t have the benefit of being backed by a 35-year price guarantee from the UK Treasury. If they did the price would be even lower.

Now before I go on, I’d like to point out I’m a fan of nuclear power. I make no apologies for it. Anything which you can buy from a supplier today knowing for sure it can produce very large quantities of low emission power is worth serious consideration. Yes, there are risks – if you build a plant poorly or it is near a seismic fault line or you have a regulator in bed with the industry you can get some pretty shocking results. But I think that on balance the risks are manageable and worth taking, given its benefits.

But we’ve got to be honest with ourselves about the costs of nuclear power.

The problem to date with nuclear power has been that it’s been nearly impossible to nail down just how much they actually cost. In western countries that have liberalised electricity markets, where prices and government subsidies tend to be reasonably transparent, there hasn’t been a nuclear plant built in decades. The one recent build in Finland, Olkiluoto, is hardly a glowing advertisement, with the budget blowing out to €8.5 billion ($12.31 billion), or almost three times the delivery price of €3 billion.
 

The other places where construction of a handful of safer third-generation nuclear plants have occurred are China and Korea. In both countries state involvement in electricity is extensive. One would be very brave to expect that their costs would readily transfer to western country market conditions.

The same cost uncertainty besets coal with carbon capture and storage, although the uncertainty is worse than nuclear.

By comparison, working out the costs of a gas turbine, wind power or solar panels is far more straightforward. There is an active market in these products where you can get reliable quotes for supply to Australia. And projects are being installed in Australia and in large numbers across a wide range of countries and market structures. Also, construction of wind and solar projects are a relatively simple proposition, meaning less chance of nasty time and budget blowout surprises, unlike nuclear. This gives us much greater confidence about their costs.

The other thing worth noting about the UK project is that this is not a first-of-a-kind plant. It is the third European pressurised reactor built by EDF (the other two, Olkiluoto and Flamanville, have had large time and budget blowouts). Also, if EDF were to proceed with constructing another nuclear plant at Sizewell in the UK, then it has only agreed to lower the price of power it will supply to $151 per MWh.

So if nuclear is so expensive, why is the UK government doing this?
1. Because its wind and solar resources are far worse than Australia’s and so nuclear’s economics are quite attractive. In reality the UK actually has a reasonably okay wind resource but it has let wind farm NIMBY-ism get out of control;
2. Because it has a bipartisan consensus that climate change is a serious problem;
3. It provides a hedge against gas prices that are at the whim of global oil and gas market dynamics – something we’re about to also experience soon; and
4. It faces a looming generation supply shortage because existing aging plant needs to shut soon.

Given the four points above they concluded this was a necessary deal to make, even if they would prefer a more market-driven process.

It also provides a superb illustration that cost dynamics for power generation technologies can be highly geographically specific. One needs to be very careful in translating the experiences of one country in power generation to another. This is something many Australian nuclear advocates, who are often not active participants in the power market, have difficulty with.

Bargain Prices for Wind Energy

More Bargain Prices for Wind Energy: This Time in Oklahoma

SustainableBusiness.com News

Public Service Company of Oklahoma is buying three times the wind energy it originally planned because of "extraordinary pricing opportunities," it says.

Buying 600 megawatts of wind energy will save the utility an estimated $53 million in the first year alone and even more after that, it says, while providing electricity for 200,000 homes.

Prices for wind energy are 50% lower than last year in Oklahoma - less than coal or natural gas.
  
"With these long-term power purchase agreements, we're adding a significant amount of Oklahoma wind energy, bringing more diversity to our fuel mix, and doing so at a price that will provide substantial savings for our customers," says Stuart Solomon, President.

The utility signed power purchase agreements for 200 MW of energy from three Oklahoma wind farms under development: Balko Wind Project (300 MW total); Seiling Wind Project and Goodwell Wind Project - deliveries begin by 2016.

Oklahoma's Renewable Portfolio Standard targets 15% renewable energy by 2015 and the state ranks #8 for wind generation. The University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma State University get all their electricity from wind.

Onshore wind energy prices are projected to drop another 12% by 2016, thanks to advancing technologies and lower equipment costs, says Bloomberg New Energy Finance.



CREDIT: Sue Ogrocki, Associated Press

Meanwhile, wind energy hit a record last Thursday in Oklahoma and eight other states that make up the Southwest Power Pool. It supplied 6.45 GW of energy for several hours in the afternoon and evening - about 23% of all fuel sources.

Other recent low-priced wind energy buys include:

• Austin Energy's purchase of 570 MW brings it to 35% renewables. It's paying 2.3 cents to 3.3 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) - less than natural gas.
• Houston's 140 MW purchase, making it the biggest municipal buyer in the US;
• Excel increased its wind portfolio by a third in the Upper Midwest, buying 600 MW.  "Wind power is simply the cheapest resource available right now, and we are taking the opportunity ... to further shape our systems for the future," says Ben Fowke, CEO of Excel.
• Ohio State University bought 50 MW from the biggest wind farm in the state. 
• Massachusetts' utilities are joining to buy 565 MW from projects in Maine and New Hampshire.

GHG Fighter

Wind A Cost Cutter, GHG Fighter, Grid Study Says

by Pete Danko

There’s more evidence that integrating increasing amounts of wind power onto the nation’s power grids could not only go more smoothly than some have feared, it could also be a money saver.

The latest report comes from PJM (PDF available here), the grid operator for 13 states in the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes region. The goal of the study that PJM organized was to look at “the operational, planning, and market effects of large-scale integration of wind power”

image via Shutterstock

The PJM project team found that “(e)ven at 30% penetration, results indicate that the PJM system can handle the additional renewable integration with sufficient reserves and transmission build out.”

And if you think “sufficient reserves and transmission build out” is code for expensive back up and transmission infrastructure, that’s apparently not the case. The study found that transmission costs would be a small fraction of the value of the energy produced from renewables.

Indeed, the report said “the principal impacts of higher penetration of renewable energy into the grid include … lower systemwide production costs” and “lower wholesale customer energy costs.” All that, and “lower emissions of criteria pollutants and greenhouse gasses,” too.

As you might expect, the wind industry loved the study, with the American Wind Energy Association saying PJM’s work “confirms that wind energy is drastically decreasing both the price of electricity and emissions of harmful pollutants.”

The industry has had plenty of good news to point to recently. A recent update of the Western Wind and Solar Integration Study, by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, showed that ramping fossil-fuel generation up and down to accommodate more renewables reduced the carbon cutting benefits of wind (and solar) by only 0.2 percent, even at high renewable-energy penetration rates.

And researchers in Spain also reported that cycling doesn’t much hinder wind power’s ability to trim greenhouse gas emissions.

Wind Power Cuts CO2 Emissions

Wind Power Cuts CO2 Emissions Considerably, Even At High Penetration Levels

New empirical research out of Spain shows that wind power is very effective at cutting CO2 emissions, even at quite high penetration levels.

This is, of course, what many of us would expect, but some people have had the odd idea (or have at least claimed) that wind power plants require such a large amount of backup power that they are useless in making such cuts. Absurd… as this new research shows. Unfortunately, the myth proposed by the confused or biased commenters that most likely stimulated this research has been spread pretty far and wide. Media agencies with a weird bias against wind power, or simply looking to stir up controversy and counterintuitive claims, have been keen to present the myth noted above. Will this research put an end to that? One can only hope so.

The specific findings of the researchers from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid were as follows:

• “Every wind MWh introduced in the network allows us to avoid all the CO2 of each displaced thermal MWh at a low penetration.”

• “When penetration levels are as high as 50%, the wind effect is accumulative and reductions would reach just 80%. However, this reduction is still significant and there are no negative cases…”

The researchers also note that the usefulness of wind turbines can be further improved by developing wind turbine technology and modeling, management of the electricity system, and use of energy storage technologies — all of this is already well known and there is a great deal of research and development going on in these arenas. In other words, wind power’s tremendous CO2-cutting effect is only going to increase in the coming years.

With wind power being the cheapest option for new electricity in many if not most regions of the world, this is of course great news, even if it is (unfortunately) intuitive and will not be covered by much of the media for that reason, including the same media outlets that have repeatedly covered the counterintuitive myth.

Just be sure to bookmark this article for the next time you see a story or comment that betrays the purported intelligence of the human species.

Read more at http://cleantechnica.com/2013/10/21/wind-power-cuts-co2-emissions-considerably-even-high-penetration-levels/#e32pfYiolEOvtwuf.99

Northern Germany spearheads energy transition

Schleswig-Holstein has pioneered the generation of wind power in Germany. Largely rural, the northern state has capitalized on the renewable energy boom and hopes to be exporting electricity soon.



On the North Sea coast in Friesland, Germany's ambitious energy transition targets are already tangible; hundreds of wind turbines are in use, and most farms have solar panels on their roofs. Some grow corn for use in biogas plants.

 In the last 25 years, the people and farmers of Schleswig-Holstein have worked to decentralize energy production, investing several billion euros, the kind of money that only large corporations can normally muster.

"Nine out of 10 windmills are owned by local residents," according to Nicole Knudsen from the Association of Wind Energy, which is based in Scleswig-Holstein.

Hinrichsen has a share in a wind farm "In some villages,
three-fourths of residents are already involved, a
substantial number that truly represents the people."

Ernst Hinrichsen is one of those citizens; the former judge took out a loan from his bank to pay for a share in a local wind farm. The banks here know the business and that it works. Selling the electricity pays for the loan. Hinrichsen, who is an advisor for the Galmsbüll wind farm, says a seven to eight-percent return on investment is the norm.

Steep learning curve
In the past, wind power was a bone of contention in many villages. Farmers were compensated as the windmills were erected on their land, but nobody else profited.

"People were green with envy and neighbors quarreled," Hinrichsen recalls.
Now, the wind farms are designed to benefit all - costs are kept low and profits are being shared out. "We pay rent for the land we use, and the amount is the same for everybody," says Jess Jessen, a farmer and executive director at the Galmsbüll wind farm. In addition, farmers receive compensation for the land used by the wind farms, because they cannot be used for farming.

Introducing rental fees has also had another advantage: "We've had two major technological innovations in the last five years," Jessen says, adding that the system allows wind farm operators to be flexible and erect bigger and more efficient plants.
Today, the mood in Galmsbüll is much better than in those early years. Out of 500 residents, 430 are involved in a new wind farm. "We needed 4 million euros, and in the end we collected 10 million from residents. It shows that the idea of citizen funding has taken root here," Hinrichsen says.

New jobs, more income

Jessen says wind power in the region benefits all. People are generally positive about wind power in Schleswig-Holstein these days, with 70 percent in favor of new facilities being built. By 2020, Germany's northernmost state plans to boost wind power from the current 3,700 megawatts to 9,000 megawatts.

For local councils, residents and farmers, renewable energy - especially wind power - has become a major source of income. Local authorities make 50 million euros annually from the trade tax paid by the industry. Farmers and residents can boost their income and benefit from an improved job market. Around 7,000 people work in the industry.

Trailblazer Schleswig-Holstein
Over half of the state's power supply comes from renewable energies, 70 percent of which come from wind power, 20 percent from biomass and a further 10 percent from photovoltaics.

The local governing coalition of Social Democrats and Greens wants to expand the state's role model status in Germany's nuclear phase-out and energy transition.
Schleswig-Holstein is the first German state to have a ministry for the energy transition,which also deals with agriculture, environmental issues and rural development.

By 2015, the state's energy demands are to be covered entirely by renewable energy sources, by 2020, twice or possibly even three times that amount is earmarked for export to neighboring regions, especially to nearby Hamburg.

"Conditions here are generally very windy, and this is why we can provide cheap electricity," Ingrid Nestle, deputy minister for energy and agriculture told DW.
The regional government has already doubled the amount of land available for wind farms to allow for more investment. It also engages with residents at an early stage to keep them informed about the necessary grid upgrades and possible building sites.

Many residents boost their income via wind power projects

Power from renewables also needs to be stored, which is why an underwater pipeline is planned from northern Germany to Norway. "There we have huge water reservoirs that can serve as storage space, and so far it's not being used," Nestle says.

She believes the energy transition will be a big boon for rural regions like Schleswig-Holstein. It is up to the local and regional governments to create the necessary frameworks and get residents involved:

"That's how residents become active participants. And that makes them amenable to the cause, so that money can be mobilized and ideas become reality."