“This would bring us closer to our goal of producing 25,000 megawatts offshore by 2030,” Tiefensee said.
Tiefensee further said that the ministry had approved 2,500 applications for wind turbines in the North and Baltic seas. Tiefensee said that a proposal for the wind farms will be presented to German Chancellor Angela Merkel on September 16, 2009.
Costs for the new wind farms have not yet been established.
“The current discussion about the nuclear waste depot Gorleben shows once again very clearly that we need to expand renewable energy,” Tiefensee said.
Of the 40 wind farms planned, 30 will be in the North Sea and 10 in the Baltic Sea. Twenty-two have already received approval from the government and the government intends to have 100 square kilometers (39 square miles) for offshore power projects. The wind farm will be built mainly near East Frisian Islands.
“We are securing and creating jobs in one of the markets of the future,” Tiefensee said, adding that wind farms could mean 30,000 jobs in Germany. “We want Germany to be at the fore of this technology.”
Christian Dahmke of Germany’s Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency said that approval has already been given for 22 offshore wind farms in the North Sea and another three in the Baltic with a total of 1,800 turbines. Officials were considering another 55 applications, Dahmke said.
