In the media: Wind power record in December; nuclear waste disposal; Heligoland looks where the wind is blowing

Wirtschaftswoche

"Wind power breaks one record after another"

Between 3400 and 3700 megawatts of new wind power capacity have been built in Germany in 2014, Mario Brück writes in the Wirtschaftswoche. But this is not the only record: According to the International Economy Forum Renewable Energies (IWR) in Cologne, December 2014 was the month with the highest production of power from wind ever, Brück reports. Wind turbines generated almost nine billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, according to preliminary data from the electricity exchange. On the 12th of December, wind power made up one third of German power supply, the Fraunhofer ISE institute said according to the Wirtschaftswoche. In 2015, when several offshore wind parks go online, power output will increase even further, Brück writes.

Read the article in German here.

See the press release from the IWR in German here.

See the Fraunhofer ISE solar and wind power generation figures for 2014 in German here.

Die Welt

“Seehofer attacks Gabriel over power-line ultimatum”

Bavarian Minister President Horst Seehofer dismissed Federal Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel’s demand that the state decide by the end of January where power lines connecting wind power from the north to Bavaria in the south will run. Seehofer repeated that Bavaria is carrying out a public dialogue as planned, which will culminate at the end of February when state officials sit down with the federal government and present their position.

Read the story in German here.

dpa/Spiegel Online/Focus

“Interview/OEW head: There is a global market for nuclear waste”

It is possible that Germany’s nuclear waste could be stored abroad, as there is a “global market” for atomic waste, said Heinz Seiffert, head of the municipal association OEW, one of utility EnBW’s owners, in a dpa interview that was widely picked up by the German media. Seiffert pointed out that Germany is already importing power from nuclear installations in surrounding countries, and said that solutions must also be found for waste from hundreds of nuclear facilities around the world. In view of that fact, German companies could use the money they are currently setting aside to deal with shutting down nuclear plants to find a solution, he said. He added that industry will not fund political “search loops” that could cost billions of euros without leading to a solution. In response, various politicians rejected the idea of exporting nuclear waste. Green politician Franz Untersteller, as well as FDP politician Hans-Ulrich Rülke, both from Baden-Württemberg, said in Spiegel Online and in Focus that Germany had to take responsibility for its own nuclear waste.

Read the dpa story in the Süddeutsche Zeitung in German here.

Read the Focus article in German here.

Read the Spiegel Online article in German here.

Zeit Online

“Fresh breeze for Heligoland”

On the tiny island of Heligoland in the middle of the North Sea, the wind industry is conducting one of its biggest offshore projects to date – installing enough wind turbines to power nearly a million households forty kilometres away on the mainland, Katja Scherer reports in a feature in Die Zeit. The industry has put three billion euros into the effort already, but the islanders are skeptical as to whether the project will save Heligoland’s precarious economy.

Read the article in German here.