In the next ten years there should be wind turbines on two percent of the German state. An ambitious traffic light plan, because in 2018 the construction of new plants came to a halt due to an insecure federal government. Nevertheless, Wolfram Axthelm is optimistic that the wind industry is on the verge of boom years, tens of thousands of jobs will be created and installed capacity in Germany can be doubled – if the approval procedures are streamlined and shortened as promised and the federal states cooperate. The good news for wind power opponents? The number of turbines in the landscape will probably increase only minimally, because the technical development is far from complete, says the managing director of the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) in the second part of his interview with the ntv climate laboratory. “On land, systems already have an average output of 5.3 megawatts,” explains Wolfram Axthelm – although previously little more than three megawatts was imaginable. “And the 6-megawatt system is already going into series production.”
ntv.de: By 2030, two percent of the country’s area should be built on with wind turbines. Where are they all going? Where do you see them? On the highway? On the coasts?
Wolfram Axthelm: We already have 29,000 systems. With continuous renewal and the installation of the latest equipment, we won’t need very much more. In the end we might be at 30,000 to 35,000 systems in Germany.
All in all?
Exactly. But in the future with a higher output per system. In this respect, there will no longer be facilities, but of course you will see them. That’s how it is. And maybe it’s not bad at all that people are realizing that electricity doesn’t just come out of the socket, but has to be generated somewhere. I once had a discussion in Jever with 350 wind power opponents in an inn, where I was thrown at me: This should continue to happen with coal, the people in Lusatia have gotten used to it.
Cynical.
Yes, that’s a difficult argument if you just want to prevent eight or nine wind turbines on your own doorstep. We have to expect that people can see where energy comes from. If we should find another, better option in ten years, we can simply dismantle a wind turbine and feed the material back into the existing value-added cycle. This is a completely different problem than with an opencast coal mine, where you still have 30 to 40 years to go before it becomes a reasonably reasonable landscape again.
But there is no guarantee that the traffic light will remain in power after the next federal election. Do you think it is possible that plans and goals would be rolled back if the Union were to participate in a government?
There are also positive examples in the northern German federal states where the CDU has a say in government. In this respect, the picture is differentiated. We have the impression that there is now a consensus at the federal level that you can no longer pull the lever, because that would expose Germany as an industrial location to a new stress test. Industry wants renewable electricity throughout Germany because it needs it as a location advantage. Tesla in Berlin-Brandenburg, Intel in Magdeburg – these giant companies went there because there is enough renewable electricity there, now and in the future. No matter how hectic the discussions are, there will no longer be any recourse to nuclear and coal.
But someone has to manufacture and set up these wind turbines. Is the wind industry fit enough after that big break in 2018 when the market was more or less halved?
In fact, this phase presented the industry with a huge challenge. You couldn’t compensate for that with more exports. We lost 40,000 employees across the entire value chain, of whom people said back then: we will all need them again! Because it was clear that renewables had to be expanded. In this respect, the change of government really came at the last right moment, before the industry was totally devastated. We also have a different situation than with solar energy, because wind energy is very firmly anchored in German mechanical and plant engineering. A number of companies are active in the automotive sector as well as in wind energy, especially in the supplier sector. They wanted to establish a second mainstay and were then very disappointed that the federal government did not react when the industry got caught in the downward spiral.
Now we can see across the entire industry that people are looking for staff again. It’s not easy because you have to tell people: four years ago you were thrown out on the street, but please come back to us now. Trust was lost there too.
But at Nordex in Rostock, the employees had their last working day on June 30th. Vestas closed its plant in Lusatia at the end of the year. Do these employees also come back? Will these works reopen?
These are global companies and the German market disappeared from the scene for four years because the installations were so small. During this time, other markets have become very strong.
For example?
The US market has experienced incredible dynamism over the past four years. This started and continued under President Barack Obama. Global companies then naturally ask themselves when making investment decisions: is the shortest route to the USA through the Kiel Canal or via production facilities in Morocco? The German government could have prevented that if the German market had not been given up politically. But it is all the more important to think about it now: How can I get enough production from the existing foundation of the company to be able to achieve the goals of the federal government? The Federal Government has recognized this challenge.
In April, the Federal Ministry of Economics invited manufacturers and suppliers from the wind energy sector, but also from the solar industry, to a first round of discussions. In July there was the second round, where there was a discussion: What is actually needed in addition to the goals? Orders, because companies can only make decisions on this basis. That’s why it’s so important to shorten and speed up the approval process and get more volume into the market from next year.
But many companies not only lack orders, but above all the people to implement them. Could these orders even be accepted?
This is a question of reliable political goals. We have the impression that we can plan with the targets for 2030 and 2040 even if there is a change of government. If the corresponding orders result from this and the high volume of 10,000 megawatts per year is actually met, the companies can align their production facilities accordingly. Many jobs will also be created in the area of ??service and maintenance, because the systems have to produce electricity for 20 years. This will also give lateral entrants many perspectives in the industry. We are already working with LEAG, that is the lignite group in Lusatia, on a project in which we are looking at how employees who are no longer needed in the coal industry can find new jobs in the renewables sector, especially wind energy ?
How many jobs are we talking about?
If the goals of the federal government lead to the corresponding orders, we can create 100,000 to 150,000 new jobs in wind energy over the next few years. This is a real industry of the future. You said it: 115 gigawatts are to be installed by 2030. That’s double today’s performance. This will not work without additional people.
And in the long term, maybe from 2050, is it possible that the number of systems will decrease again because they are becoming more and more efficient?
That may be, the technical development is far from over. We don’t know what leaps in innovation will be possible in ten years. But it was once said that 11 megawatt systems would be conceivable at sea, but not much more than three megawatts on land. Today, onshore systems already produce an average of 5.3 megawatts. The 6-megawatt system is already going into series production.
Most innovations are currently moving in the direction of saying that the systems can already produce electricity at the lowest possible wind speed and produce electricity for as long as possible in strong winds. During a storm there were always many inquiries about how much electricity had been produced. Then we always had to explain that unfortunately we didn’t produce anything because a storm isn’t all that good for wind power. Above a certain wind speed, the turbines have to be switched off, otherwise the physical pressure will be too great. That was the challenge for plant engineers and manufacturers: How can I extend this production time? When do I have to turn the system out of the wind? Today you can not only control the cockpits, but each individual rotor blade. A lot has happened there and the development is far from over.
Where do these rotor blades come from?
Mainly no longer from Europe, but from locations that are either close by, such as Turkey or Morocco, or from Brazil, Vietnam or other regions. These are international supply chains.
And the other ingredients?
The tower construction usually takes place in the region where the plant is being built, because that is logistically easier to handle. There are steel towers and concrete towers. One of the largest steel tower builders is located in Schwerin, Mecklenburg, that is KGW, which is also pleased that progress is being made again. One of the most important concrete tower builders is Max Bürgel. They have several locations in Germany and are not necessarily associated with wind energy because it is actually a large construction company. But it shows that companies that didn’t do anything with wind energy ten years ago are entering this industry.
Clara Pfeffer and Christian Herrmann spoke to Wolfram Axthelm. The conversation has been shortened and smoothed for better understanding.
