RWE boss urges Germany cut offshore wind targets on wind wakes and 'duck beaks' concerns
'Just over 50GW' would make more sense to avoid wake effects and achieve lower energy prices, Markus Krebber argues
Germany's current offshore wind target should be lowered to somewhere just over 50GW, to avoid wake losses and soaring grid connection costs in more remote areas, RWE CEO Markus Krebber has said.
In enthusiastic pursuit of Energiewende — Germany's catch-all word for energy transition — the outgoing government's Green Party climate minister Robert Habeck had raised the goal for wind at sea to an ambitious 70GW by 2045 to make sure Europe’s largest economy reaches climate neutrality by then.
Current offshore wind deployment stands at a little over 9GW, and Krebber argued that a downgrading of expectations will be useful to the cause.
To reach a volume of 70GW, Germany would also need to build offshore wind in the so-called duck beak of its exclusive economic zone in the North Sea, a far-offshore area pointing towards England, where presumed grid connection costs are “incredibly high”, Krebber explained.
“If you look not only at the electricity generation costs but also at the grid expansion costs for that, we believe you should put that on hold for now and wait to see how electricity demand actually develops,” Krebber said, adding that current grid expansion plans a based on an “extremely high demand forecast”.
What are wind wakes?
When wind turbines extract energy from the wind to produce power, they leave trails of lower intensity and more turbulent wind stretching behind them. These trails, known as wind wakes, can stretch vast distances – even 100km. If one wind farm is caught in the ‘shadow’ of another’s wake, the lower wind speed will mean it generates less power, reducing revenues. One wind farm 'waking' another is sometimes known as ‘wind theft’.
Asked at what level an adjusted offshore wind target should stand, Krebber said: “If you look at how many gigawatts are in the duck's beak and then subtract another 5GW, then a reasonable order of magnitude is roughly just over 50GW.”
The CEO also said that tenders should move away from having strict gigawatt targets for specified areas at sea.
“We would also prefer to build individual areas we have with fewer gigawatts, because then we have a more efficient profit in relation to the electricity yield. The megawatt per electricity will be cheaper, we would have fewer shadowing [wake] effects, and the like.”
To guarantee security of supply, the incoming government under likely Chancellor Friedrich Merz should also hold competitive tenders for new gas-fired power plants as soon as possible, Krebber added.
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