Wind power in Germany
[3][4] As of the end of 2015, Germany was the third largest producer of wind power in the world by installations, behind China and the United States.
[7] To achieve these goals, the government is implementing measures to streamline planning and approval processes for wind energy projects.
[citation needed] Germany is also notable for having some major wind turbine manufacturers based there, such as Enercon in Aurich, Senvion in Hamburg, and Nordex in Rostock.
[12] Following the 2011 Japanese nuclear accidents, Germany's federal government began work on a new plan for increasing renewable energy commercialization, with a particular focus on offshore wind farms.
[15] A major challenge was the lack of sufficient network capacities for transmitting the power generated in the North Sea to the large industrial consumers in southern Germany.
[19] The German Federal Government, alongside the state of Lower Saxony and private sector, has pledged €300 million to finance a 30-hectare expansion of the Cuxhaven offshore terminal, with construction mandated to start before planning permission expires in February 2025.
[20][21] Since 2011, Germany's federal government has been working on a new plan for increasing renewable energy commercialization,[22] with a particular focus on offshore wind farms.
[14] In 2016, Germany decided to replace feed-in tariffs with auctions from 2017, citing the mature nature of the windpower market being best served in this way.
[25] The 2010 "Energiewende" policy has been embraced by the German federal government and has resulted in a huge expansion of renewables, particularly wind power.
[26][28] The transmission constraint sometimes causes Germany to pay Danish wind power to stop producing; in October/November 2015 this amounted to 96 GWh costing 1.8 million euros.
[31] However, more recently, there has been increasing local resistance to the expansion of wind power in Germany, due to its impact on the landscape, incidents where patches of forest where removed to build wind turbines, the emission of low frequency noise,[32][33] and the negative impact on wildlife, such as birds of prey and bats.
