Typisch bremisch Typically “Bremish”

POWER FROM THE SEA
Offshore wind energy is the basis for the energy turnaround.
The sector’s pioneers are hard at work in
Bremer haven. Here and in Bremen, the wind industry
and the power sector comprise a seminal economic
cluster right along the entire supply chain.
In Bremerhaven they get cross when non-professionals
refer to “windmills” – that sounds too romantic, like fairy
tales and children’s nursery rhymes. These are not windmills,
they are wind turbines. There is nothing romantic
about them, they are the living embodiment of high-tech.
The challenge: installing wind turbines that are up to 160
metres high in water that is 20 to 40 metres deep, at
distances of up to 200 kilometres from the coast. Often in
adverse conditions with strong wind and heavy swell.
Pioneer work is needed here. Other countries on the North
Sea have far shorter distances to their wind farms. But
Germany’s North Sea coast is lined by the UNESCO World
Cultural Heritage Site Wadden Sea, which must be protected.
These special conditions make offshore technology par -
ticularly complicated and expensive. But it is also particularly
worthwhile, given the great wind yield far out at sea.
And because it is almost always windy out there, offshore
wind energy is the only regenerative energy that can practically
serve as a constant source of base-load electricity,
says Nils Schnorrenberger. He is the Managing Director of
BIS (Bremerhavener Gesellschaft für Investitionsförderung
und Stadtentwicklung mbH) which is responsible for economic
development in Bremerhaven. He adds that power
generated by wind farms out at sea is almost as reliable as
electricity from conventional power stations. An offshore
wind turbine generates 4,500 full-load hours, compared to
just 2,600 by wind turbines on land.
Power for millions of households
According to the German government’s forecast, originally
ten gigawatts of power were to be generated at sea by
2020. This target has meanwhile been reduced to seven
gigawatts. The target for 2030 is 25 gigawatts. A wind
turbine with six megawatt output produces power for
6,900 households; an offshore wind farm with 400 mega -
watts can keep 460,000 households supplied, according to
Schnorrenberger. If everything goes according to plan, by
2030 it should be possible to keep up to 28.6 million
households supplied with power from the sea. No other
regenerative energy source in a future energy mix can
manage this kind of magnitude. Which is why the energy
turnaround won’t succeed without offshore technology.
Schnorrenberger has to repeat this statement frequently
just now: the young technology that only recently gave
Bremerhaven so much hope has currently got the wind
very much in its face. Expansion is well behind the German
government’s ambitious schedule. But Schnorrenberger
believes that this technology will be successful – and with
him everyone else up here on the coast too. “Reliable
political framework conditions – that’s what we need”,
he says.
Bremerhaven has been advocating wind energy already
since 2001, when work began on the targeted development
of the offshore wind cluster. Since 2002, the State of
Bremen has invested around 125 million Euro in establishing
the wind industry location in the former fishing port.
More than 5,000 jobs have already been created in the
region. In the medium term, this figure could double at
least, according to a study by the Wind Energy Agency
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