Germany can now rely on wind power to produce 65% of its power requirements. According to a report from Bundesverband WindEnergie, an industry group of Germany, the country can produce this amount of electricity using its onshore wind. Having said that, BEW has also accepted that the wind power alone is not enough to produce sufficient power to meet the base load power demand.
The president of BEW, Hermann Albers has cited a commissioned report to suggest that the wind power can effectively replace the nuclear power plants across Germany, something that the country is trying to achieve of late.
On the wake of the Tsunami and subsequent atomic disaster in Japan, the German government had taken the decision to inspect the safety of 17 reactors spread all over Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel has even come out with a statement to phase out the atomic reactors. Seven old atomic power plants have already been shut down with no indication as to whether they will resume operations or not. The idea is to see whether Germany can do away with the nuclear plants that are now looked upon as potentially hazardous.
However, the problem with relentless production of electricity from wind is its unpredictability. Still, Albers argued in favor of wind power energy combining onshore and offshore wind. Other renewable energies must be utilized along with the wind power. He believes that this combination of renewable energies can replace the nuclear plants as well as many coal powered energy plants.
Talking about the prospect of wind power generation, Albers said that 22% of land in Germany is geographically suitable for the production of onshore wind electricity. If the total wind power potential of the country is utilized, wind turbines with the capacity of 198 gigawatts need to be installed. This can produce 390 terawatt-hours which is way greater than 140 terawatt hours produced by nuclear power plants of Germany in 2010.
However, there is a lot yet to be achieved. As of now, the installed wind power capacity of Germany is quite low. In 2010, it was only about 27 gigawatts.
While addressing the issue at the press conference at the industry fair, Albers even identified some areas in Germany where the potential for wind power generation is greater. According to him, southern states like Bavaria has the greatest potentials to harvest wind power energy.
For now, the installed wind power capacity in Bavaria is only 500 MW. Albers confirmed that the state can produce up to 41,000 MW of wind power. Presently, southern German states including Baden-Wuerttemberg and Bavaria depends heavily on nuclear energy.
Via: Nasdaq
