2016: Wind power overtakes nuclear power

The next road mark for renewable energies in Germany is in sight: wind turbines on land and at sea will produce more electricity than nuclear power plants this year. This forecast was provided by the International Economic Forum for Regenerative Energies (IWR) in Münster on the basis of its own calculations with current data.

For development, the IWR sees two main reasons. On the one hand, the expansion of wind turbines on land in 2015 with a connection capacity of more than 3,500 megawatts was particularly high - the second strongest year for wind power on land. Added to this are the new wind parks at sea. This year, the strong expansion onshore and offshore from the past year will have a first impact on the generation data. The IWR experts expect that the offshore wind turbines alone will produce more than ten billion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2016 for the first time.

On the other hand, the production of nuclear power plants in Germany continues to decline as a result of the nuclear phase-out. On 27 June 2015 the Unterfr?nkische AKW Grafenrheinfeld went off the net. Of the remaining eight nuclear power plants, Gundremmingen B between Augsburg and Ulm will be shut down by 31 December 2017 at the latest. However, the current failures of the nuclear power plants Grohnde, Philippsburg 2 and Gundremmingen B are more relevant for this year's figures. The reasons are maintenance work and tire series. The IWR estimated that this would be 91.8 billion by 2015, according to the IWR. All wind turbines in Germany could deliver more than 100 billion kilowatt hours this year, for example, in 2015 it was 88 billion.