Germany’s decision to phase-out all its nuclear power plants is boosting demand for renewable power across the supply chain. Germany’s Wind Power Association announced that demand for wind turbines will increase 16% in 2011.
I was in Germany a little more than a week ago and can tell you from what I saw that Germany (or, at least, Northeast Germany) is a wind turbine paradise. Wind turbines are everywhere it seems (between cities that is).
Germany is the clear wind power leader in Europe with 27,214 MW of installed wind power capacity. (Spain is second with 20,676 MW installed.)
But, even in Germany, wind power could benefit from a better transmission network. Of course, German leaders recognize that and are doing something about it — they are planning to build a wind energy superhighway.
Bureaucratic red tape is one of the biggest hindrances to offshore wind power growth right now, not just in the U.S. (where the Obama administration actually streamlined the approval process for offshore wind power last November) but in many countries.
Germany (where I’m actually headed in a few hours) is looking to take a major step forward on this front soon by transferring all offshore wind power approval responsibilities to one government authority.
One of our readers and I are putting together a comprehensive resource page for all things wind (will do the same for solar power, tidal power, and more eventually as well). As we create each section, I thought I’d post them (or parts of them) here. The first section we’re tackling is installed wind power capacity around the world. Here’s the main part of that (but have some extra, unique parts to be added soon).
