Germany was recently at a crossing point between 2 options: going ahead with nuclear energy or turning to green resources. Fortunately, the nation learned its lesson from the Fukushima disaster and chose to go green instead, forcing authorities to take notice.
To show that it got the message, Chancellor Angela Merkel is helping to unveil the country’s first commercial offshore wind farm this week.
Borrowing the name from the sea where i’s located, the Baltic 1 is being owned and operated by energy company Energie Baden-Wi¼rtemberger (EnBW). Set at a 16 km distance from the coast, near the Fischland-DariŸ-Zingst peninsula, the 21 giant wind turbines have been built by Siemens.
Each wind turbine has a rotor span of 100 meters – a capacity like this enables them to produce almost 50 MW of electricity, which should meet the needs of roughly 50,000 homes.
The Baltic 1 is just one step of a €3 billion investment that EnBW wants to make by 2020, so as to have 20% of its total energy production from alternative sources. The next step it plans to take is an even bigger wind farm in the Baltic Sea, one with 80 turbines, which in another 2 years will ensure 340,000 homes with electricity.
As a conclusion, Germany is known to be consistent in its ideas, which in this case could only mean a good thing for the green industry!
[via The Local]
