In December 2014, German offshore wind turbines fed more than 1 GW power into the grid for the first time. This is the conclusion reached by the study "Status of Offshore Wind Energy Development in Germany" by Deutsche Windguard.
On 31 December 2014, a total of 258 offshore wind turbines in the German North and Baltic Seas with an overall capacity of 1,049.2 MW were busy feeding electricity into the grid. The majority of these systems, comprising a capacity of 998.4 MW, are installed in the North Sea.
Cumulative output and number of offshore installations in the North and Baltic Seas at the end of 2014.
In 2014, 142 offshore wind turbines comprising a capacity of nearly 530 MW fed power into the grid for the first time. Of these, 56 were installed during that same year, and 86 were already installed in 2013.
Expansion roughly doubled, compared to 2013
Compared to the previous year, the expansion of new offshore facilities has roughly doubled. In 2014, 268 offshore wind turbines with a capacity of approximately 1,200 MW were newly built, but were still not feeding electricity into the grid at the end of the year. If one includes the systems that were already partially constructed previously and completed in 2014, then a total of 285 wind turbines with an overall capacity of 1,300 MW were completed but not yet feeding power into the grid.
Expansion of wind turbines in 2014
The expansion goal for 2020
In 2014, Germany had already achieved half of its expansion goal for offshore wind power, according to a study by Deutsche Windguard. If one takes systems under construction (920 MW) and already installed systems into account, then they add up to a total of 3,275.5 MW, which is 50.4% of the overall goal of 6,500 MW by 2020.
On average, an offshore wind turbine in the North or Baltic Sea has a capacity of approximately 4.1 MW, a rotor diameter of 118.4 m and a hub height of 88.8 m. Turbines that were newly connected to the grid in 2014 had a lower power output than average (3.7 MW), but had a larger rotor diameter (119.8 m) and their hubs were higher (89.2 m).
The report titled "Status of Offshore Wind Energy Development in Germany" was created by Deutsche Windguard on behalf of VDMA Power Systems, the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), the Wind Energy Agency (WAB) and the Offshore Wind Energy Foundation (SOW).
Tanja Peschel
News