Germany: Construction of Gadegast wind farm has started

With the start of the foundation work for eight wind turbines in the district of Gadegast all those involved have reached a special milestone. The North Hesse all-round wind energy company vortex energy Deutschland GmbH has been developing the project for three years now and has succeeded in selling it to a large German institutional investor. As the general contractor, vortex energy will be performing the construction work in the period April to September 2016. After commissioning, vortex energy will also take charge of the wind farm’s technical and commercial management.

The company, which is based in Kassel, has developed the project from the “green field” stage since it was included in the regional plan of Anhalt-Bitterfeld Wittenberg as a priority wind energy area in 2013. There was intensive debate and in some cases resistance, but then overall approval was achieved and vortex energy was able to prevail over the competing project companies, its having planned and designed the wind farm with the consent of the town of Zahna-Elster and concluded the necessary agreement with the landowners concerned. After a total project planning time of three years it also successfully obtained the approval under federal pollution control legislation (BImSchG) for eight wind turbines.

The wind turbines of the type GE 2.75 MW with a total height of around 200 metres are being erected in the municipal area of the town of Zahna-Elster. Each turbine has an electrical output of 2.75 megawatt. The hub is at a height of 139 metres and the rotor diameter is 120 metres. "Being in the 3 MW class, the turbines chosen are ideally suited to this wind farm," explains Philipp Jeske, CEO of vortex energy Deutschland GmbH.

"After commissioning, which is scheduled for the end of September, vortex energy will also be taking charge of the operational management. It is important to us that we are for investors a comprehensively competent partner, that we successfully prepare the wind farm for marketing, while meeting all statutory specifications, and that as the operational manager we remain a contact partner for at least a decade. This involves considerable trust," Dr. Florian Leuthold, COO, vortex energy Holding AG, stresses.

The "Gadegast" will supply around 16,250 households with an annual output of about 65 million kilowattt hours of green electricity. With these turbines it is possible to save an annual amount of more than 37,000 tonnes of CO2 as compared with the energy generation mix in Germany, which is still dominated by fossil fuels. "A further step on the road to 100% energy supply from renewables," says Dr. Till Jeske, founder and CEO the vortex energy Group, "We regard the decentralised generation of energy from renewables as the key to the future and we want to make a major contribution to the energy turnaround in Europe," Jeske states.