Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier has begun his four-day 2012 summer tour on 19 August in northern Germany. It is a symbol of the energy transition and marks the start to further discussion and visits to various German regions and Berlin. In the center of the 2012 summer tour are the three major topics of energy production, transportation and energy efficiency. The program further includes various environmental and nature conservation aspects related to the development of renewable energies.
“The politics must once more give the importance to environment and nature protection, which citizens had in their consciousness long ago. Implementation of the energy revolution offers that option,” Peter Altmaier said at the beginning of the summer tour.
It began on 19 August with a visit to the Friedrichskoog Seal Station and a mudflat hike with the representatives of nature protection. On the second day Peter Altmaier visited Germany’s first offshore wind farm Alpha Ventus, which is located 45 km north of Borkum and has been connected to the grid in 2010. Alpha Ventus has supplied approximately 270 gigawatt hours of electricity in 2011, exceeding initial expectations.
Afterwards, Peter Altmaier was in Varel, Bremerhaven and Cuxhaven talking with companies and workers from the offshore sector. The offshore industry has developed in recent years and already more than 15,000 people are working in the offshore industry. In ten years there will be over 33,000 of employees.
The next stop on the summer tour was the substation Dörpen West, near Papenburg. In the converter Dörpen/West wind energy from direct current is converted back into alternating current and fed into the transmission network, which transports electricity in the industrial centers in western and southern Germany.
On 21 August Peter Altmaier is visiting Gelsenkirchen, the”City of the Future Energies”. The focus here is on the local contributions to the energy transition. Already in 1996, the Science Center Gelsenkirchen had the largest solar rooftop installation in the world.
On 22 August Peter Altmaier will visit the EUREF Campus in Berlin to get information about the topic of electromobility.
The last stop of the summer tour is an energy self-sufficient village Feldheim in Brandenburg. In Feldheim an overall concept for a decentralized renewable energy supply to business, households and communities was realized. Through a separate local heat and power grid, the locally produced heat and electricity is passed directly to the consumer. This way, costs and dependence on the networks of traditional energy suppliers are avoided.
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Offshore WIND staff, August 21, 2012; Image: BMU