Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 24/1/2024; Author: Nina Rozman
Data by Electricity Maps, an online app that publishes information on electricity production and consumption, shows that wind generated 31.71% of the electricity consumed in Germany at the time the claim was published.
Diego Loredan, administrator of the Facebook group Civil Initiative for the Protection of the Senožeče Hills, claimed on the social network on 11 January that “in Germany, approximately 30 thousand wind farms currently cover 3.2 per cent of the energy needs”. The claim came with the addendum “long live the green transition” and a screenshot of a map purporting to show German wind farms. The post had been shared by more than 960 users by the time of publication.
The same map and message had been posted on the Norwegian Facebook profile Naturvenner (Nature Lovers), which has more than 3,900 followers, on 14 October 2019. The profile’s administrator credited Erlend Leirdal, a Norwegian artist who makes wooden sculptures, according to publicly available information. On the same day as the Naturvenner profile, the message was posted in the Facebook group No to wind farms in Frøya, a municipality in Norway.
Jure Vetršek, head of the Department for Efficiency and the Built Environment at the Innovation and Development Institute, University of Ljubljana, explained to Razkrinkavanje.si that the assessment of a country’s energy needs is based on its final energy consumption.
Eurostat defines final energy consumption as “the total energy consumed by end users, such as households, industry and agriculture,” which does not include consumption by the energy sector itself.
Vetršek pointed out that the terms energy and electricity should not, in principle, be equated, as electricity is only one form of energy, alongside heat and fuels, for example. When it comes to the consumption of energy generated by wind, the equivalence is permissible for the sake of simplicity since wind is used exclusively to generate electricity. For example, wind does not directly power vehicles or heat buildings.
The latest available data from the International Renewable Energy Agency shows that the share of renewable energy in Germany’s total final consumption in 2021 was 18%. The same figure was provided by the International Energy Agency in its review of the German energy system. No figures were given for the share of wind power alone.
According to the agency, wind power accounted for 61.7% of renewable energy generated that year and 27% of all electricity generated in the country.
Electricity Maps, an app operated by a Danish start-up, shows that wind generated 31.71% of the electricity consumed in Germany at noon on 11 January this year, shortly before Loredan’s claim was published. The app’s authors warn that they “publish data and maps for informational purposes only” and do not guarantee their accuracy. The data is obtained from government authorities such as energy departments, statistical offices, transmission or distribution system operators, and companies that directly produce or manage energy.
The German Wind Energy Association (BWE), which has been a key promotor of the German energy transition since its foundation in 1996 and is one of the world’s largest renewable energy associations, states on its website that wind energy accounted for the largest share of electricity generation in Germany in 2023, at around 32% (net).
BWE’s figures are based on data from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, which is mainly funded by the German federal states of Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the German government.
According to data from Deutsche WindGuard, a consultancy, which BWE also uses on its website, there were just under 28,700 onshore wind turbines in Germany at the end of 2023.
We have shared our findings with Diego Loredan. We will publish his response when we receive it.
The claim that around 30,000 wind farms in Germany provide 3.2% of energy needs is unfounded, because there is a lack of credible data on the share of energy needs provided by German wind farms, and the available data suggests that it is in fact much higher.