30-Year Anniversary for the First German Wind Farm

On 24 August 1987 the then Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Uwe Barschel, inaugurated the first wind farm on German soil with the words "Steady wind from the front!" As witness Diether Haack told German radio Deutschlandfunk recently, however, the protagonist at the Kaiser Wilhelm Koog was missing back in the days: "So we had a lull, but we had the procedure, of course, on August 24th. The turbines were running, but they did not reach their full capacity which they could have done at full wind force, but we have activated the nucleus and the birthplace was clear."

Since then, a lot has changed: the technical development has now progressed to such an extent that the dimensions of the old wind farm are more of a joke. The most powerful wind turbine in the farm back then had a capacity of 55 kilowatts. Today, the large offshore wind turbines have a capacity of 6 to 8 megawatts. And the breakthrough towards 10 MW turbines is expected shortly.

Onshore wind turbines also have a capacity of 3 to 4 MW nowadays, while the towers are often five times and more higher than 30 years ago when the highest tower had a height of 20m, as reported by the NDR.

But the 30 turbines of that time pioneered the more than 27,000 wind turbines that now contribute more than 30 percent of the share of renewable energies in Germany.