From the perspective of Siemens Gamesa, the German market needs stronger incentives to accelerate the expansion of offshore wind power. “From today’s perspective, we need inflation compensation for the ramp-up of offshore wind power in Germany and Europe in the tenders for new wind farms,” said Martin Volker Gerhardt, Managing Director of Siemens Gamesa in Germany, WELT. “It doesn’t make sense if investors win bids for wind farms with ‘negative bids’ and they can’t recover these costs later from the electricity price.”
So-called “negative bids” are created today at auctions for the construction of new wind farms, when companies pay money to win the bid. If in doubt, the company then sells the electricity on the open market without the previously customary subsidy of the “feed-in tariff”. In the past, it was also common for offshore wind farms for the operators to receive feed-in tariffs that were set by law – or determined at auctions – for a certain period of time. In the meantime, however, the modalities for the tenders have been expanded.
Germany wants to expand its installed offshore wind power capacity on the North Sea and Baltic Sea to 30 gigawatts by 2030. There are currently around eight gigawatts of capacity in German waters with a total of around 1500 wind turbines. The first tenders for new wind farms are running. The time it takes to achieve the goals for 2030 is extremely short by industry standards – also because Germany is also competing with offshore projects in many other countries of the European Union, in the USA or in Asia due to scarce industrial capacities.
Siemens Gamesa, majority owned by Siemens Energy, is the world market leader in the manufacture of offshore wind turbines. Cuxhaven currently has the most modern plant in the world for the production of these systems. Offshore turbines, each with an output of eleven megawatts, are being built there. With this output, more than 10,000 average households in Europe can be supplied with electricity if the systems are in constant operation. From Hamburg, Siemens Gamesa controls marketing and project development in various countries.
In Denmark, Siemens Gamesa is testing its next generation of offshore wind turbines, each rated at 14 megawatts. “The size of the plant is decisive for realizing cost advantages in offshore wind power,” said Gerhardt, who is responsible for the development of offshore turbines in the company. Two prototypes with rotor diameters of 222 and 236 meters have been installed in Denmark. For comparison: Cologne Cathedral is about 157 meters high.
The company is currently also developing an offshore wind turbine that can use wind power to generate “green” hydrogen directly at sea via electrolysis. The technology is considered a promising addition to classic offshore wind farms – more energy can be derived from the marine power plants in the form of hydrogen than in the form of electricity and shore connections: “We are working on a wind turbine that will also generate hydrogen directly with integrated electrolysis at sea can. This is very complex, also because the seawater has to be desalinated before electrolysis,” said Gerhardt.
In the meantime, however, Germany is not only facing more competition in terms of the available capacities for the construction of new offshore wind farms. Nowadays, companies like Siemens Gamesa tend to build new sites for the construction of wind turbines or rotor blades in other countries. “Siemens Gamesa is planning a rotor blade plant in the US state of Virginia and one for nacelles in the state of New York,” said Gerhardt. How quickly such works would be realized depends on the corresponding incoming orders in the USA. The US government of President Joe Biden is using substantial subsidies and tax breaks to attract companies that develop and produce “green” technologies, primarily for energy supply.
As a result, Germany is losing more and more of its former pioneering role in renewable energies and especially in offshore wind power. Siemens Gamesa is the only manufacturer with German participation that produces offshore wind turbines – and the only large company in the offshore wind power industry that currently still produces on the German coasts. Germany lost the production of so-called converter stations for offshore wind farms a few years ago after the federal government slowed down the expansion of offshore wind power.
Converter stations convert the electricity from alternating current to direct current so that the energy can be transported from sea to shore with little loss. The electricity is then converted back to alternating current on land. Grid operators such as Tennet or Amprion are currently getting their converter stations for German offshore wind farms from Spain – and from China.
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