By Eileen Woll, Offshore Energy Program Director, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter
I had the honor of being invited by the German Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Action to join a U.S. offshore wind expert delegation (pictured here - list of U.S. delegation members below) in a 4-day program in June 2022. This transatlantic knowledge exchange is part of a broader scale effort to strengthen the energy and climate cooperation between Germany and the U.S., and encourage the exchange of ideas and best practices in policy and supply chain development to reach both our countries’ ambitious offshore wind and climate targets.
It was an extraordinary experience with many lessons learned about German OSW that could be applied in the U.S., and vice versa. Most importantly, the program provided numerous networking opportunities, and I established what I believe will be very fruitful, long-term connections.
Day 1 featured presentations from Dr. Florian Knobloch, Deputy Head of Division, Climate and Energy Cooperation and Marius Backhous, Deputy Head of Division, Offshore Wind Energy, both with the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. Also presenting was Andreas Mummert, Head of Politics with the Foundation Offshore Wind Energy.
The biggest takeaway for me is Germany’s dedication and vision at its top levels of government to addressing the climate crisis. The country has set as national law the goal of climate neutrality by or before 2050. As each German presenter pointed out, to accomplish this goal, massive amounts of OSW will need to come online and fast.
In 2020, renewable energy accounted for the largest share - 44.6% - of its electricity mix. (Note big onshore wind share - turbines were everywhere!) Interestingly, Germany will have no nuclear power. The last two remaining plants will be shut down by the end of 2022.
Germany currently has 7.7 gigawatts (GW) installed capacity of offshore wind. Per revisions to their Offshore Wind Energy Act, they have deployment targets of 30 GW by 2030, 40 GW by 2035, and 70 GW by 2045. This sizable amount of renewable energy coming online not only involves standing up a massive number of projects, but also transmission grid planning, which Germany - unlike in the U.S. - does simultaneously with project planning.
We also toured Bundesnetzagentur or BNetzA, the German regulatory office (its self-proclaimed “one stop shop”) for electricity, gas, telecommunications, post and railway markets, and were given a presentation of Germany’s regulatory framework for OSW and its grid connection by Florian König, BNetzA Energy Advisor. Germany’s OSW is north in the North Sea and Baltic Sea. They are in the planning stages of figuring out how to get all this power south where there are a number of generation users.
Germany has four large transmission operators, with grids stretching into neighboring countries, including the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. Germany is also home to the world’s first offshore interconnection. Operational since 2020, it connects German and Danish OSW projects.
We also learned that Germany is very excited about developing green hydrogen power with their OSW, and will auction the first site for offshore hydrogen production later in 2022 as a pilot.
Day 2 featured a tour of the reserve control center of 50Hertz and presentations by Dr. Dirk Biermann, Managing Director, and Dr. Heinrich Quick, Head of Offshore. The discussion following their presentations got extremely complicated - with many in the U.S. delegation fascinated by their systems and probing with tons of technical questions. I sensed there were a lot of lessons for PJM - our grid operator - to be learned from them.
Afterwards, we got on a train and headed north to the charming coastal town of Cuxhaven. While no Bremerhaven (yet) in terms of the massive acreage dedicated to OSW staging and manufacturing, the resort area is quickly ramping up and is now home to Siemens Gamesa’s 14 MW nacelle production. This is where our Virginia nacelles will be finished! (Nacelles are the hub of the turbine that sit atop of the tower and into which the blades are joined. (Here's a pic of "mere" 10 MW one.)
On Day 3, we boarded little planes and flew over several North Sea projects including Germany’s first offshore wind farm (operational in 2010) known as Alpha Ventus. Unfortunately, we did so on a gorgeous but very rare non-windy day (i.e., not too many blades in motion). So amazing to see so many turbines - some monopoles, some jackets, some with first names given to them (darn, there was no “Eileen” turbine).
Our two little planes then headed to Helgoland, a beautiful 460 acre island in the North Sea. We walked around the charming resort island (no cars and bikes allowed) and had a lovely lunch with the Mayor of Helgoland (der buergermeister), Jörg Singer. Their economy is primarily based on tourism, that has its issues. He petitioned the community to allow some OSW industry on the island and successfully worked through the resistance to it (big tax revenues from it didn't hurt). We invited him to talk to some of our U.S. mayors and he agreed! His next goal is to have his island powered by OSW. It currently ties into the grid on the mainland and is a mix of sources.
We toured the RWE production site and offshore wind park control center there. Like with seeing the Siemens Gamesa facility in Cuxhaven, I continued having visions of the future Hampton Roads, with both SG’s turbine facility in Portsmouth and Dominion’s control center in Norfolk. (Photo below is the housing facility for RWE workers who are not local to Helgoland.)
We then boarded the Halunderjet (big boat) for a lovely four hour trip down River Elbe to Hamburg. Dinner was at 9pm which is very typical for a country that has daylight from 4am to 10pm.
Day 4 was packed. First we had a great presentation on marine spatial planning by Dr. Nico Nolte, Head of Management of the Sea Department, Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency. Like in the U.S., Germany has a lot of activity happening in its offshore waters and lots of environmentally sensitive areas for birds, marine mammals, and fisheries. They regularly employ bubble curtains around any monopiles pounded into the ocean floor to help mitigate the sound impacting marine mammals. Bubble curtains are one of many items supporting OSW that will need a big ramp up of production. Like the U.S., Germany needs more transport and supply vessels, cabling, and trained personnel.
I learned that Germany operates OSW programs somewhat differently than the U.S. I'm probably oversimplifying the process, but my sense is that the federal government takes care of marine spatial planning, site assessments and various studies of project areas. They then auction off project areas and share the information gathered with the winning bidder, who then pays the government back for this with a portion of the revenue they get from operations. In the U.S., the feds only lease areas to developers. They will have done some study but basically leave the heavy lifting to developers. The feds do need to approve their plans which involve review of their siting, construction and operating plans.
We also received presentations from two developers - Alyssa Lord-Hill with RWE and Janina Schultze with TenneT Offshore GmbH. (RWE incidentally was one of the lease winners in the New York Bight sale a couple months ago.) Both talked about the challenges and opportunities associated with delivering their pledged high-volume of OSW as per Germany’s progressive climate law.
Finally, I learned that while the OSW industry employs over 24,400, Germany faces issues with OSW workforce development too. Unfortunately there was no dedicated discussion address that issue, but there are a couple within the U.S. delegation who are greatly concerned about that and we plan to follow up with each other.
Of course we had a wonderful last night networking reception, where I met Christian Bender with Siemens Gamesa. He handles new business development and is working on the Virginia project. He’s now my new best friend.
Last but not least a bunch of us went out clubbing in Hamburg and stumbled across a bar that had karaoke. So my final memories of Germany were joining some of my colleagues - U.S. bigwigs on OSW nonetheless - in a horrible rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, and having a scrumptious Turkish kebab döner at 3am. We got back to the hotel at 4am, and my alarm was set for 6am to ready for the train to the airport. Sleep? Who needs sleep, following such a fantastic trip and all the great folks I met.
Let me first thank the German Federal Ministry for this once-in-a-lifetime experience and offer a special round of applause to Cecilia Standberg, Project Director with Renewables Academy (RENAC) AG. Cecilia did an amazing job keeping us organized, on time, happy, entertained, inspired, everything!
Thanks also to the Sierra Club Virginia Chapter for supporting my participation in this outstanding program!
Auf Wiedersehen, for now!
The U.S. OSW delegation included:
Jim Bennett, Program Manager, Chief of the Office of Renewable Energy Programs, U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management;
Jocelyn Brown-Saracino, Offshore Wind Lead, US Department of Energy;
Judy Chang, Undersecretary of Energy and Climate Solutions, Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs;
Genevra Harker-Klimes, Offshore Energy Advisor, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory;
Carrie Cullen Hitt, Executive Director, National Offshore Wind Research and Development Consortium;
Eric Johnson, Director, External Affairs, ISO New England;
Sam Jung, Assistant Vice President, New York City Economic Development Corporation;
Jonathan Kennedy, Managing Director – Infrastructure, New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA);
Kris Ohleth, Director – Infrastructure, Special Initiative on Offshore Wind;
Kenneth Seiler, Vice President Planning, PJM Interconnection;
Mark Thompson, Commissioner, Oregon Public Utility Commission;
Erin Trager, International Relations Specialist, Bureau of Ocean Energy Management;
Eileen Woll, Offshore Energy Program Director, Sierra Club Virginia Chapter;
Frederick Zalcman, Director, New York Offshore Wind Alliance