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Planning procedures have begun for what may be the first German offshore wind plant. The Schleswig-Holstein government has approved a 100 MW project to be located in the bay of Lübeck at the western end of the Baltic Sea (“uåX˜äŠÊ˜·³Ç, March 1999).

Dubbed SKY 2000, the DEM 300 million project is being developed by 1. Schleswig-Holsteinische Offshore-Windpark Verwaltung (1.SHOW). A working group of nine companies has co-operated on project planning. The group includes wind turbine manufacturers Husumer Schiffswerft, Vestas Deutschland and Jacobs Energie, engineering company Aerodyn Energiesysteme, wind turbine testing company Windtest Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog and certification body Germanischer Lloyd, as well as a regional investment bank, planning office and 1.SHOW. International wind plant developer Wasserkraft und Regenerative Energieentwicklung AB, now renamed Unit Energy Europe (page 6), owns a 50% stake in the company.

The planning procedure is expected to last two years. 1.SHOW says the wind station is slated to comprise 65 turbines, which it hopes to have on-line by the end of 2002, generating about 350 GWh of electricity a year-sufficient to cover the needs of about 140,000 households. The turbines, to be sited about 15 kilometres from the shore, will feed into the grid of utility Preussenelektra via a transformer station at Lübeck-Siems. The power will be marketed by Unit Energy Stromvertrieb, part of Unit Energy Europe.