Momentum invited to speak about continued operation and its challenges
The Danish Consulate General in Hamburg invited leading Danish solutions providers to participate in the seminar “The German O&M Market”.
The seminar was hosted at the premises of Deutsche Windtechnik in Ostenfeld. Christian Liebel, Managing Director of Momentum Deutschland GmbH was one of the speakers invited to share the experience Momentum gained from continued operation, Life Time Extension and repowering based on projects, where Momentum is the asset manager.
Since Germany is facing a dramatic decrease of new installations of wind turbines, stakeholders within the industry focus more and more on a continued operation post Germen EEG subsidy. The continued operation not only carries on a number of challenges for the turbine owners, but also for the solution providers and the service providers.
“Germany will face enormous challenges in connection with the aging wind turbine fleet. Industry advocates calculate that roughly 4 GW of installed wind capacity by 2021 will lose the EEG subsidy. By 2025 the number will rise to enormous 16 GW. This is how the EEG programme works. Germany is at a crossroads whether the Energiewende will be a success or disaster. If repowering isn’t an option, every project post EEG would need to undergo a complete turnaround where cost cutting will be one of the major factors to success.”
Momentum has collected substantial hands on experience with projects outside Germany, where a Life Time Extension programme was implemented.
“We are ahead of time with our Life Time Extension programme developed on experience gained in Denmark and Sweden”, says Christian Liebel. “We are more or less only waiting for legal adjustments in Germany to be able to roll out our programme for projects where repowering isn’t an option. So far we are quite optimistic that the German Government soon would take some decisions. It would be a pity to decommission old turbines in good conditions since they produce the cheapest electricity. Continued operation would not only be a win situation for the environment but also a win from a socio-economic perspective”.
