2008 I 2009 Sustainability Report - Econsense

Wind energy from offshore
and onshore installations
Wind power plays a key role in the energy
mix of the future – both on land and on the
high seas. EnBW is active in both areas: since
2008, we have been developing four major
offshore projects in the North Sea and the
Baltic that, once completed, will supply a total
electrical capacity of around 1,200 MW
and generate roughly 4.3 billion kWh of
electricity every year. The total investment
volume for the four wind energy projects is
in the order of 3 billion €. In 2010, "Baltic 1"
will be the first – and probably the first commercial
offshore wind project in Germany –
of the four projects to go into operation with
an electrical capacity of 48.3 MW.
Capacities in the onshore segment are also
being expanded on a continuous basis,
backed up by the necessary investment. In
February 2009, for example, EnBW acquired
three onshore wind farms in Lower Saxony
and Brandenburg comprising a total of 26
wind energy installations with a total installed
capacity of 52 MW.
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Hydroelectric power
Hydroelectric power is currently the most
important source of electricity from renewables
worldwide. The power of water is
a lasting resource; it does not use any primary
energy sources like coal, oil or gas and
therefore does not emit any carbon dioxide.
EnBW has long been involved in this reliable
and climate-friendly form of energy generation.
The share of hydroelectric power in our
generation volume is above the German
average, and this enables us to make an
effective contribution to environmental
and climate protection.
EnBW operates 66 run-of-river power plants
and 12 pumped-storage power plants with a
total installed capacity of around 3,300 MW.
A 67th run-of-river plant is currently being
built at the Neckar barrage in Esslingen and
is scheduled to go into service in 2011. The
construction of the new run-of-river power
plant in Rheinfelden is currently the biggest
new hydroelectric power project in Europe
with a total electrical capacity of around
100 MW. The facility will go into operation
step by step in 2010 and will have the capacity
to generate around 600 million kWh of
electricity a year – enough to provide electricity
to a medium-sized city with 170,000
households. This represents more than
three times the annual volume of electricity
currently produced in Rheinfelden.
We are implementing another large-scale
hydroelectric power project in Iffezheim on
the Upper Rhine. Since the summer of
2009, work has been ongoing on turning
the existing power plant into one of the
biggest run-of-river power plants in Europe
by adding a fifth machine. The new turbine
has an output capacity of 38 MW, taking the
overall capacity of the facility to 148 MW.
From 2012, the Rheinkraftwerk Iffezheim
(RKI) power plant will be running on all five
turbines, supplying around 540,000 people
with CO 2-free electricity. The operator is
Rheinkraftwerk Iffezheim GmbH, in which
both EnBW Kraftwerke AG and EDF hold a
50% stake. The construction of the fifth
machine is a joint project of the power plant
owners.
Following a construction time of four years,
the Kops II pumped-storage plant in Vorarlberg
went on stream in November 2008 and
has since been supplying EnBW with valuable
peak-load and control energy. Kops II is one
of Europe's most spectacular hydroelectric
power plants and can provide an output of
450 MW for the EnBW energy control centre
at the push of a button. One of the things
that makes the power plant facility so special
is that it is "invisible" from the outside.
The three machine assemblies comprising
Pelton turbine, generator, coupling and
pump are located inside the mountain – as
is the power plant, which is housed in a cavern
61 metres high, 80 metres long and 30
metres wide.
Energy from renewable
raw materials
Wood and other "energy plants" are renewable
raw materials, and the combustion of
these materials is CO 2-neutral, as their incineration
releases only as much CO 2 as the
plants took from the atmosphere during
their growth phase. For EnBW, biomass power
plants represent a further step towards
effective climate protection. Alongside the
already high share of emission-free generation
from the power of water and wind, biomass
plays an increasingly important role
in our renewable energy mix: we produce
electricity and heat in biomass heat-andpower
plants, and we are involved in researching
options for the upgrading of biogas
to achieve natural gas quality.
In 2008, EnBW installed one of the first continuous-duty
biogas feed plants in Baden-
Württemberg in the town of Burgrieden
near Laupheim. The pilot project is a cooperative
venture of EnBW subsidiary Erdgas
Südwest and Bioenergie Laupheim GmbH &
Co. KG, in which 21 farmers from the region
and the community of Burgrieden have