The current policy in Germany seems to be preferring repowering for new wind farms.

Even as new capacities for wind energy in the first half of 2008 in Germany witnessed an increment of 20 percent (to touch 799 MW) in comparison with the same period of 2007, the situation is currently a challenging one as far as the development of onshore wind power in the domestic market is concerned.

On the other hand, the Federal government is strongly committed to support offshore wind power in Germany.

Onshore wise, the potential for new sites is quite scarce. Also, it is being said that political “preference” is shifting towards repowering as opposed to installing new wind farms in Germany. Sites for new wind farms are often subject to distance regulations and ultimately several companies are bound to compete for a single site impeding a swift project development.

In general, similar conflict areas arise during the permitting process with the local authorities as with repowering projects (noise and shadow emission limits, height and distance limits), according to Sebastian Styrnol, Project Manager/Engineer, Projekt GmbH.

“A further aspect to increase acceptance of new (or repowered) wind farms is lying in the safety lighting of wind turbines. A research project by the German Wind Energy Association, called Hi‐WUS, has made first recommendations concerning the type of safety lighting on wind turbines and proposed the increased use of automatic reduction of the lighting intensity through measuring visibility,” shared Styrnol.

According to Styrnol, both re‐powering as well as defining of areas for new wind farms are a matter to be decided by the local authorities. Currently, it can be observed that these local authorities have been opposing this.

Of these hurdles, one is of the economical nature. As per the current legislation, trade tax for revenue generated from a wind farm is split 70/30, with 70 percent going to the local authority where the wind farm management company is seated and 30 percent going to the local authority on whose land the wind farm has been installed.

“Due to the fact that most local authorities prefer having 100 percent of the trade tax flowing into their budget, they demand that wind farm operators relocate their corporate seat into the community in question, which is often denied and in turn leads to denial of the local authorities with regards to the wind farm project,” says Styrnol.

The other opposing aspect is related to the changing of development plans, especially when considering competing land uses (commercial, residential or industrial use or for nature conservation reasons). As permitting of wind farms, the repowering of wind farms as well as defining new areas for wind farms is to a very large extent a communal matter in Germany, there is not much potential for influence on behalf of the Federal Government, says  Styrnol.

As far as the offshore is concerned, around 30 wind farms are currently either in their application proceedings or already permitted.

The Continental Shelf Information System (Contis) of the Federal Maritime Hydrographic Agency (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt & Hydrographie, BSH) gives information on these projects.

As far as the support for offshore wind power in Germany is concerned, in addition to the feed‐in tariff, there is also the possibility of applying for Federal bonds to aid in financing the projects. Moreover, there is an ongoing effort by the German Federal Ministry of Transport concerning a spatial plan for the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) defining dedicated areas for offshore wind energy and the remaining utilisations of North and Baltic Seas.

“So far this spatial plan has not been finalised as there are still some points of criticism from various sides; one being that it does not allow for enough potential offshore wind energy capacity. In the initial draft offshore wind farm planning was limited to the dedi‐cated offshore wind energy zones; this is to be eliminated in the next upcoming draft. If the German Government wants to further pursue its plans for the quota of 30 percent renewable power by 2020, it has to be ensured that enough space for offshore wind energy remains in the German EEZ,” said  Styrnol.

Repowering allows the generation of more power on less area

Assessing parameters for attaining a successful position in the German wind energy industry, an expert had referred to: replacing the first‐generation wind turbines with modern multi‐megawatt wind turbines can nearly double the capacity of a wind farm and triple the energy yield.

Agreeing with the same, Styrnol said repowering allows the generation of more power on less area used by fewer wind turbines.

Fewer but larger wind turbines also improve the visual impact. Moreover it is acknowledged, that wind farms with fewer and larger turbines have better electrical characteristics, which is attractive to the grid operators as well, he said.

According to Styrnol, however, there are several issues to be overcome:

Many local authorities block the repowering projects by sticking to very strict environmental regulations (especially concerning shadow and noise emissions) as well as very general height and distance regulations. The German Wind Energy Association calculated the impact of restrictive regulations for the three major “wind power states” Schleswig‐Holstein, Lower Saxony and Mecklenburg‐Vorpommern. In Schleswig‐Holstein, under consideration of shadow and noise emission limits, the current wind power generation could be increased by 330 percent  through repowering. This level would drop to an increase of only 70 if the local authorities would insist on emission limits, height restrictions and overall distance limits. The same limits applied in Lower Saxony would result in zero percent increase of wind power generation through repowering and only 10 percent in Mecklenburg‐Vorpommern.

“This issue has to be discussed with the local authorities on a case‐by‐case basis, leading to great delays in project development. For example in one case, our company has been in ongoing negotiations with one local authority concerning repowering of a wind farm since the end of 2007. As it is the assessment of experts that these restrictive building regula‐tions are partly also due to information deficits concerning modern wind turbine technol‐ogy and their impact on the environment respectively their noise and visual impact, the Wind Energy Agency Bremerhaven/Bremen (WAB) is currently conducting a project aiming at interchanging information and opinions between the wind energy industry and for ex‐ample representatives of local authorities with the objective of increasing the acceptance for repowering projects,” said Styrnol

Another challenge is the available grid capacity at a given wind farm. As with repowering you at least have to double the feed‐in capacity, you may come into a situation where the grid capacity is insufficient and has to be extended by the grid operator first.

A challenge may also reside in renewed negotiations with land owners. If the repowering of a wind farm leads to a scenario where land lease payments would be redistributed (e.g. where there were three land owners benefitting from a wind farm, but now only two would benefit because there are less wind turbines), a wind farm operator willing to repower his wind farm might run into opposition to his plans.
 

Future of wind energy sector in Germany

The industry forecast “Power Supply 2020 – How to reach a mod‐ern energy economy”,  which has been published by the German Bundesverband Erneuerbare En‐ergien (BEE; German Renewable Energy Association), predicts a 47 percent market penetration of renewable energy sources by 2020. Moreover, the report suggests that by 2020, wind power will provide a quarter of Germany’s total power consumption, as much as the total power consumption of Bavaria and Baden‐Württemberg together.

Regarding installation of the new capacity, the report states that the number of wind turbines would stay roughly constant with new capacity originating from repowering projects.

Regarding offshore, the forecast predicts a total installation of 10 GW by 2020.

“Apart from such industry forecast, it can be said that lot of future developments hinge on exterior political and economical conditions. Whether or not we will see a lot of wind turbines being replaced will depend on the willingness of the local authorities to lift turbine height restrictions,” shared Styrnol.

“Regarding offshore wind energy, so far no significant offshore developments have started. The regulations of the EEG provide a good basis for economical viability. However to get the first projects within the German EEZ started, further steps are necessary. Especially in the light of the on‐going crisis on the world’s financial markets, federal bonds may be required for the first projects in order to be able to secure a financing package.”

Regarding the issue around putting together a financing package, German offshore developers suffer also from a “hen and egg” problem concerning the grid connection.

Financial institutions and investors do require proof of a grid connection for any given offshore wind farm project in order to be able to provide financial commitment. On the other side, the transmission grid operators, who are by law responsible to provide grid connection for the first offshore wind farm projects, demand proof of order of key components for the offshore wind farm project in question such as orders for turbines or foundations in order to be able to start the process of tender‐ing and subsequently issuing orders for the grid connection.

For this E.ON Netz GmbH, which is responsible for connecting projects in the North Sea, has issued a catalogue of criteria which is to be fulfilled by any project which to be connected to the grid, shared Styrnol.

“This catalogue has been assessed by all developers active in the North Sea as unfeasible, thus virtually stopping any progress with regards to E.ON proceeding with preparations to providing grid in the North Sea. However, without financing hardly any project developer will be able to commit to order such key components. Thus the uncertainties circling around the transmission grid operator’s obligation to provide grid connection to all offshore wind farms going into operation until 2013 need to be removed; a clear procedure and catalogue of requirements has to be issued by the relevant Federal authorities,” he added.

Styrnol said one can still be hopeful that these will be dealt with over the coming months.

It is to be expected that the first few pioneering projects will be serving as “crystallisation points” for future development as the infrastructure for the German offshore wind industry becomes available and subsequent synergy effects are being realised.