Germany: Leading Wind Power Development
Although the use of wind to generate electricity has been on a rise throughout the world, one country has exceeded all others in harnessing the power. Germany has the highest installed capacity in Europe. In the year 2011, the total installed capacity was 29,075 Megawatts.
Some interesting questions that arise from these facts are: How Germany is able to develop this technology with its present framework? What were the driving forces for Germany?
The first breakthrough came in the time period of 1991 to 1995. This was the period when Germany was at a stage of implementing a policy to protect the climate. Government interventions were done to promote wind energy. The same year saw the modification of its 100 MW policy and the turbine capacities were increased to 250 MW. Germany has never looked back since then. These capacities have been installed regularly year after year. During the second boom around 1997, the offshore wind potential came as a big discovery for Germany. Germany’s wind potential was 70-100% more at offshore sites due to higher wind speeds.
