Germany - World wind energy market booms while domestic market shrinks

At this year’s Hanover Trade Fair the Energy segment will be presenting new technologies and services. Numerous manufacturers and suppliers in the wind energy industry will be exhibiting their innovations for climate protection, thus reflecting the worldwide boom in the wind energy sector.

Calculations of the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) show that sales revenues from German-made wind turbines and components rose 18 percent from 6.4 billion in 2006 to 7.6 billion euros in 2007. Over 78 percent of this was accounted for by the export business alone. “The booming world market is responsible for some 10,000 new jobs in the wind energy sector. Last year all manufacturers and suppliers in Germany expanded their capacity. At the end of 2007 nearly 90,000 people were employed in the wind energy sector. In 2006 it was still around 79,000”, noted Hermann Albers, President of the German Wind Energy Asso-ciation, at the Hanover Trade Fair.

The year 2007 saw the installation of new wind farms with an output of 20,076 mega-watts worldwide. This compares with a total of 22,247 megawatts installed in Germany since the early 1990s. However with only 1,667 megawatts of newly installed capacity Germany has lost its position as international frontrunner to the U.S.A. and is now only in fifth place after Spain, China and India. The main reason for this 25 percent drop in relation to the preceding year is the steady decline in payments for land-based wind power.

“The scale of payments laid down in the current Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), which was last amended in 2004, are no longer appropriate to today’s cost situation,” explained Albers. The constant increases in efficiency are no longer enough to make up for the drastic rises in the price of steel, copper, energy and standard components. The government bill to amend the EEG unfortunately fails to meet the case. “Germany needs an EEG amendment that creates new investment and innovation incentives also for onshore wind energy, as well as a joint effort on the part of government and network operators for a rapid expansion of the electric power lines,” Albers stressed with an eye to the impending Bundestag debate on the amendment.