Offshore wind power - a building block for energy independence

Inhaltsverzeichnis

(Hier finden Sie die deutsche Version des Beitrags)

In Germany and Europe, there is concern about a blackout in the face of ongoing discussions about energy shortages as a result of Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine. Depending on how one looks at it, the energy transition in Germany is considered to have been delayed or even to have failed. In many places, horror scenarios are being sketched out.

We decided to look ahead and take a closer look at what is considered one of the big factors for the success of the energy transition: offshore wind power. To get a closer look at what is actually happening, installed and maintained offshore, we visited WindMW GmbH, which operates on Helgoland as well as in Bremerhaven and Zossen.

This series of articles comprises several parts, which we publish from Tuesday to Friday this week.

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Welcome to Helgoland

Bright sunshine, colourful stalls and that slightly salty-tasting air that surrounds the North Sea. The pennants that are supposed to make the footpaths more colourful are constantly blowing in the wind. The so-called high seas island of Helgoland shows its best side to my photo and video colleague Johannes Börnsen and me as a welcome. Helgoland, however, is not only meant to please tourists, Helgoland is also meant to make an important contribution to securing Germany's energy independence through wind energy.

To get a closer look at what actually happens offshore, we visited the company WindMW. WindMW owns the Meerwind Süd | Ost wind farm. The park is one of the first German project-financed offshore wind farms to be financed entirely by private investors, and at the same time also one of the first "offshore" wind farms to be approved and built after some near-shore installations.

Trial fields in the German Bight

Compared to onshore wind power in Germany, offshore wind power is a much younger industry, even though some companies were already increasingly concentrating on offshore expansion and operation around the turn of the millennium.

Onshore, the repowering of old turbines with a service life of 20 to 30 years is already underway. For offshore repowering, however, the turbines are generally still too young. The first near-shore plants were realised from 2004 onwards. In some cases, there were several years between projects. According to an information website of the offshore wind industry, the first "offshore" park followed in 2010 with the offshore test field alpha-ventus. It was only since this time that the development of offshore wind power - also with larger capacities - slowly gained momentum in the German Bight.

Traffic light circuit for offshore wind power

Offshore wind power is intended to generate electricity as efficiently as possible from a source that does not run dry and whose extraction entails comparatively few emissions - i.e. comparatively with conventional power plants, which are also built, maintained and repaired, but for whose operation raw materials are also constantly mined or developed, transported and then usually burned. The emission burden is therefore permanently higher here.

According to a 2014 calculation by the company WindMW on its Meerwind Süd | Ost wind farm, "the operation of the wind farm can save one million tonnes of CO₂ each year compared to a comparable amount of electricity generated by coal-fired power plants".

The fact that offshore wind power is seen by the federal government as a solution to the current energy problems, but also to mitigate man-made climate change, is also made clear by the new expansion targets of the traffic light government.

While under the previous government offshore expansion ultimately came to a standstill in 2020 - no more project areas were even tendered with the Federal Network Agency - the new federal government wants to realise at least 30 gigawatts of installed capacity with offshore wind power by 2030. By 2035, the capacity is to increase in large steps to 40 gigawatts, and by 2045 it is to be at least 70 gigawatts. The traffic lights want to achieve this in particular by streamlining planning and approval procedures.

For comparison: As of August 2022, the wind farms installed to date have a capacity of around 7660 megawatts, or just under 7.7 gigawatts. According to a calculation by the offshore consulting and service company "Deutsche Windguard" from the end of 2021, a further 13 gigawatts are already being planned or tenders are scheduled for a large part of this capacity by 2030 - resulting in an expansion gap for the 2030 targets. (More precisely: for 2.2 GW there is already an investment decision, for 1.9 there is a grid connection commitment. In the Area Development Plan 2020 of the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH), further tenders for 8.7 GW are scheduled).

Windguard calculates that an additional 9.4 gigawatts must actually be put out to tender by 2030. It is therefore questionable how this will be achieved in the future. Who should invest? Which areas will still be released - and under what conditions?

Bidding procedure as for mobile radio licences

The amendment to the Wind Energy at Sea Act (WindSeeG) under the traffic light government now provides, among other things, for a bidding procedure for areas - similar in nature to the auctions of mobile phone licences. The "Offshore Wind Energy Foundation" does not approve of the new procedure. It explains: "In future, project developers will first have to put money on the table - similar to the auctions of mobile phone licences - in order to build an offshore wind energy project at all. Instead of an award based on the lowest costs, the bidder who pays the highest price for the rights to use the area will be awarded the contract."

On the one hand, the foundation believes that these bidding procedures could increase the price of electricity for industry, and on the other hand, the wind power value chain has been weakened by the previously slowed expansion. Some suppliers and manufacturers have had to close down or downsize due to the political decisions of the past years.

So not everything is looking good for the wind power industry, even if one would expect full order books due to increased expansion targets. The sector has been starved and must now get back on its feet. A rapid expansion will only work if the companies concerned are there at all, investments are worthwhile and the supply chains do not collapse.

Safety for businesses

We asked Stefan Wenzel (Greens), the new State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK), about this topic. He explained that there is no intention to intervene directly with subsidies (yet), but that the increased expansion targets set out in the coalition agreement will create more security for the industry.

To make some of the industry's work easier, the BMWK also wants to speed up the designation of areas at the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency (BSH) and streamline other procedures. Whether the BSH will change its current procedure, however, must be clarified within the coalition. This is because the BSH is part of the portfolio of the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV) under the leadership of Volker Wissing (FDP). The Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology has called for cooperation here, at least formally.

Only when the BSH has carried out area assessments can the Federal Network Agency invite tenders for areas for wind farms. How the BSH does this is presented as transparently as possible to the public in a data portal.

For the detailed interview with Stefan Wenzel click here: "It often takes long lead times and that is a huge challenge".

The North Sea does not care about borders

Looking beyond the German Bight, it also becomes clear that planning cannot be done without the neighbouring countries. German interests in the North Sea must always be clarified with the surrounding countries - ecosystems are not interested in national borders, and shipping traffic for import and export or tourism should be possible across national borders anyway.

So far, the cooperation between the littoral states can be seen as progressive and team-oriented. Most recently, in Dublin in mid-September, the North Sea states defined what they want to achieve in the North Sea in terms of offshore. Stefan Wenzel was also present there as a representative of Germany.

In a joint declaration by the energy ministers and the European Energy Commissioner, expansion targets for the North Sea region of 76 gigawatts by 2030, 193 gigawatts by 2040 and 260 gigawatts by 2050 were agreed. This expansion target corresponds to more than 85 percent of the EU-wide offshore expansion required by 2050 in order to achieve the EU goal of climate neutrality.

The energy ministers also agreed that more hybrid offshore projects should be initiated in the future. Parks would thus be connected to several countries, power flows could be distributed differently - it will become more "volatile", if you like to put it that way.

"Together with better coordination of area and network planning, this should result in a closely connected offshore network in the future," the ministers explain. The acceleration of approval procedures at EU and national level has also been decided.