Germany’s Debacle: 2/3 Of Wind Projects “Running Badly To Very Badly”…Case Of The “Missing Wind”

Germany-based European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) here brings up a television report on the disappointing returns from wind parks, recently appearing on SWR South German public television.

The days of the media not questioning green energy are over.

SWF stunned utility manager

Mainz public utility director Detlev Höhner dismayed by wind energy returns. Image cropped here.

Wind parks experienced a gold rush atmosphere, with thousands of turbines being erected over the last 15 years. Now the data are coming in on their real performance, and it looks bad. The German SWR TV report (can be viewed at Youtube) first presents the background on wind energy development in Germany and tells the story of “disappointed investors”, especially in the western German state of Rhineland Palantinate.

Initially investors’ expectations of getting rich on wind were high, the report says. Big returns were promised (between 400 and 800% in 2006). But for a wide majority that dream has shattered violently as losses mount.

“2/3 of all projects are running badly to very badly”

The SWR report at the 1:20 mark says the promises of huge returns were based on overly optimistic wind model forecasts. Werner Haldorf of the pro-wind-energy German Association of Wind Energy analyzed wind park performance and sums up the “surprising” results at the 1:38 mark:

We can say that one third of all projects have pleased the investors, or at least have been satisfactory – depending on how high or low the subjective expectations were, satisfied also with respect to the planning results. And two thirds of all projects are running somewhat badly to very badly.”

In his summary report he concludes:

SWF wind report

The origin of the plight for commercial windparks in Germany is the excessive “planning optimism” (Garrad Hassan) that was created among investors.”

Unexpectedly high repair, maintenance and insurance costs

At the 2:06 mark Daldorf tells SWF that the cause is “the missing wind, too much wind was planned, shoddy planning, improper planning, and unexpected (or falsely expected) high repair, maintenance, and insurance costs“.

These are the results of Daldorf’s nationwide windpark analysis. More and more it is becoming obvious that many of the investors were conned to some extent by Big Wind.

The missing wind

The report then focusses on the wind parks in the German state of Rhineland Palatinate. There the picture is even worse. The problem is that the necessary amount of wind needed to make the projects profitable there often just does not materialize. At the 2:51 mark economist Uwe Pilgram tells viewers that a turbine must run a minimum of 1700 hrs at full capacity each year in order to make a profit. But Pilgram says the average in 2013 was barely over 1400 hours.

Mainz Public Utility Director Detlev Höhner sullenly says that his community’s 20 wind plants put into operation between 2005 and 2010 so far have not made any profit and has made a “light loss”.

In the city of Trier (3:55) the result for its public utility is also disappointing. Public utility manager Rudolf Schöller:

We planned for average wind conditions, but in the first years we had relatively weak winds, and that’s why the wind yields were not so high.”

The reporter tells viewers that some years saw as little as 80% of the expected wind. The reporter adds: “That’s a disaster, experts tells us. A privately run company would certainly have gone bankrupt.”

The problem, the SWR reporter says (5:15), lies in false wind projections. Often times the planning goes out of control and is thus too costly. For the city of Mainz the new wisdom has become: “Don’t trust any planning office“.

Wind index adjusted downward three times!

At the 6:30 mark SWF brings in a wind energy expert Prof. Uwe Leprich, who warns that wind turbines “are not money printing machines” and says that the last years have seen weak wind conditions, yet hopes that will change in the years ahead. Interestingly he says that future wind conditions are based on data from the past and from these data a wind-index is computed for future planning. Here he admits (7:00 mark) that the wind index has been “adjusted three times” downward. Leprich blames the unpredictable weather conditions specifically in Rhineland Palatinate for the wind park profit problems.

The moderator then asks why that had not been foreseen (7:27 mark). Leprich replies that data from the previous decades were used, and blames “changes in wind conditions over the last few years“, adding that the wind index had to be adjusted nationwide. He repeats that especially in Rhineland Palatinate the wind conditions are especially difficult.

Skeptics’ warnings were ignored

Later Leprich says that “new framework conditions” have since been drawn up for planning future projects and that planners will need to be extra careful when siting wind projects. Readers here need to know that wind-park opponents and skeptics provided plenty of warnings on the poor profitability of wind parks, but in the mad and blind gold rush, no one heeded the warnings. Skeptics were branded crackpots, naysayers and complainers.

And what about the communities that have already falsely speculated (8:40) and lost money? Who pays for the losses, asks the moderator? Leprich doesn’t answer the question, making a huge circle around it. It was a rhetorical question anyway.

German green energy companies collapsing

The SWR report also looks at how Germany’s recent cut in subsidies for green energies and on how renewable energy companies are really feeling the pain. At the 9:30 mark the report features German renewable energy company Juwi., which years earlier had boomed mightily in the wind and solar businesses. In 2012 the company even broke the €1 billion mark in sales. But the report continues: “However 2 years later, everything is different“. Today the mood at Juwi is especially bleak as the company lays off its workers: Every third worker is getting a pink slip – 400 in all.

Government to blame…CEO drives expensive sports car

Without the subsidy nipple, the orders disappear and green energy companies die off. At the 12:20 mark the reporter says that the Juwi managing director Matthias Willenbacher blames the government for the misery, just before he is shown cruising in his ultra-high-priced sports car.

Back in the studio at the 14:00 mark, Leprich says the industry grew too fast and was led by inexperienced managers. He says the move into green energies was too rash and uncontrolled. He calls the massive investment in solar energy a mistake and concedes that the industry was too dependent on politics. At the end Leprich still thinks that solar and wind energy are the energies of the future – a seemingly obstinate position in view of the monumental debacle they are turning out to be. Leprich keeps clinging.

Historic industrial debacle

In reality, however, what we are actually seeing is the unfolding of one of history’s greatest industrial debacles, all driven by a fraudulent climate science and a deceptive industry. Slowly realizing they’ve been bamboozled, the German media, government and the numerous green energy promoters are scrambling to save face.

USA poised to follow same ruinous path

With the debacle now clear to the rest of the world, one would think other countries would sober up and be more cautious about following a similar path. They aren’t. Indeed it is truly astonishing that other countries, like the USA for example, are ignoring it all and are now attempting to put themselves on the very same ruinous path to repeat the German debacle, and to do so on an even grander scale.

If there ever was a definition for madness, this is it.

 

16 responses to “Germany’s Debacle: 2/3 Of Wind Projects “Running Badly To Very Badly”…Case Of The “Missing Wind””

  1. mwhite

    It is likely to show if Britain has a severe (cold) winter.

  2. Moose

    So, now thats clear.. Get a move on and start removing these ugly statues of political and scientific lies.

  3. DirkH

    Now that the damage has been done, the state journalists are suddenly allowed to bemoan it.

    Meanwhile the same journalists report 100% lies about at least three other problems; preparing the next disasters. You can all guess what these problems are. It’s not warmism; Warmism is yesterday’s psychosis. (Nils, if you’re reading: You have wasted your life.)

  4. DirkH

    Watched the video. They make it sound like the poor shiny ponys from the renewable companies are victims of erratic policy decisions. What they fail to mention is that the renewable companies knew very well where their bread was buttered, and invested MORE money into lobbying for favorable policies, including driving right to Brussels all the time, “advising” our beloved antidemocratic Kommissars; than they invested in product development. They were always first and foremost and consciously sucking at the taypayers teat.

  5. Stephen Richards

    In the UK as well. Cameron is encouraging communities to put sloar panels on all their roofs. Churches, Village halls, maison de residence, hospitals and so on. Planning is easier than covering a 200 acre field which is arable.

  6. David Joss

    “Don’t trust any planning office“
    They should have consulted sailers instead.
    Any one of them could have told them of the vagaries of wind as a source of energy.

  7. Graeme No.3

    Stephen Richards:
    Let us hope that the weather conditions of the 1960’s don’t happen again.

    Anecdote of the time;
    Nervous Englishman trying to make small talk to African “I understand that you worship the sun in your country”
    African “so you would in your country, if you ever saw it.”

  8. David

    sound like we need climate change to bring the winds to make the windmills go in order to stop climate change

  9. yonason

    This looks interesting
    http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
    A look at UK power by source, with nuc and coal by far the most useful.

  10. oebele bruinsma

    The You tube movie made it very clear: the intimate relation between politics, activism (including scientivism) and naive optimistic entrepreneurship. A rather lethal cocktail.

  11. Mick J

    In the UK there is about 12 GW rating plate capacity of wind turbines installed, as can be seen at the GridWatch site mentioned above the third down graph in the second column shows that wind power this month is for the most part below 1 GW. Today at 1.5GW is a peak for the month. Still less than that being imported from French Nuclear. GridWatch also has a French power generation page.

  12. bit chilly

    the turning tide against warmism gains impetus,and not before time.

  13. edmh

    For a comparison on the costs and effectiveness of renewable energy in the USA Germany and the UK see:

    http://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/hello-world/

    Here is an analysis of cost ratios, and no matter what your viewpoint of economics might be, the numbers here don’t lie. Without being propped up by subsidies, solar and wind aren’t even in the race as their competitiveness leaves them at the starting line while cheap natural gas (aided by fracking) runs laps around the race course.

    In summary, these conservative figures show that these three major nations of the Western world have spent of the order of about ~$0.5trillion to create Renewable Energy electrical generation capacity nominally amounting to ~5.8% of their total generation.

    This capacity could be reproduced using conventional natural gas fired electrical generation for ~$31 billion or ~1/16 of the costs expended.

  14. edmh

    For a direct comparison of the costs and capacity factors of wind farms and photovoltaics from the USA Germany and the UK see:

    http://edmhdotme.wordpress.com/2012/01/01/hello-world/

    Here is an analysis of comparative cost and effectiveness ratios for renewable energy in three major committed nations. Whatever your viewpoint of economics might be, the numbers here don’t lie. Without being propped up by subsidies, solar and wind aren’t even in the race as their competitiveness leaves them at the starting line while cheap natural gas (aided by fracking) runs laps around the race course.

    In summary, the figures show that these three major nations of the Western world have spent of the order of about ~$0.5trillion to create Renewable Energy electrical generation capacity nominally amounting to ~5.8% of their total generation.

    This capacity could be reproduced using conventional natural gas fired electrical generation for ~$31 billion or ~1/16 of the costs expended.

  15. Germany’s Debacle: 2/3 Of Wind Projects &...

    […] RT @NoTricksZone: Germany’s Debacle: 2/3 Of Wind Projects “Running Badly To Very Badly”…Case Of The “Missing Wind” http://t.co/QPSKURefvD v…  […]

  16. Mick J

    Not limited to Germany.

    “Power From Wind Turbines Slumps – Due To Lack Of Wind

    Date: 26/09/14
    Emily Gosden, The Daily Telegraph

    Power produced by wind farms slumped by a fifth in the second quarter of this year, despite hundreds of new turbines being built – because it wasn’t very windy.

    Official Government statistics published on Thursday show that in the three months to the end of June, the amount of electricity produced by offshore wind farms fell by 22 per cent, to 2 terawatt-hours (TWh), compared with the same period the year before.

    Yet the number of offshore wind turbines operating grew significantly – with 4.1 gigawatts (GW) of capacity installed in the seas around the UK by June this year, up from 3.5GW by June 2013.

    Power output from onshore wind farms also fell, by 17 per cent to 3.22 TWh. The fall came despite dozens of new wind farms being built, increasing onshore wind capacity by 14 per cent over the same period. […]

    About 900 turbines were constructed on and offshore over the course of 2013, according to Renewable UK.

    Dr John Constable, director of the Renewable Energy Foundation, which publishes data on the sector and is critical of subsidy costs, said: “The latest DECC data is further confirmation that wind power output is highly variable over all timescales, minutes, hours, months, and even from year to year.

    “These variabilities are physically manageable but they have highly significant negative economic impacts on the rest of the power generation fleet, whose market is made very uncertain, and these uncertainties ultimately mean much higher costs for consumers.””

    http://www.thegwpf.com/power-from-wind-turbines-slumps-due-to-lack-of-wind/

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