Germany recently took a massive step forward in the country's transition away from dirty energy to clean energy. According to Electrek, the first of dozens of giant 15 megawatt wind turbines is in place at the He Dreiht wind farm in the North Sea, Germany's largest offshore wind farm under construction. The He Dreiht wind farm is the first in the world to use the 15 megawatt turbines, manufactured by Vestas.
The turbines are so powerful that just one spin of one of the rotors produces enough energy to power four households for an entire day. When the entire wind farm, all 64 turbines, is up and running, it will produce 960 megawatts, enough to power roughly 1.1 million homes. It's expected to begin operation in late 2025.
To put that in perspective, 1,100 pounds of coal needs to be burned to produce one megawatt of power for one hour (one megawatt-hour), according to FreeingEnergy. So that's 1,056,000 pounds of coal that would need to be burned per hour to match the output of the He Dreiht wind farm.
Per the Environmental Protection Agency, just one megawatt-hour worth of coal creates about 2,180 pounds of carbon pollution, one of the main drivers of the planet overheating, causing increased extreme weather.
Not only will He Dreiht effectively remove thousands of tons of carbon pollution from the atmosphere, but it will also lead to cheaper energy prices for German consumers.
"It will play a key role in helping us to significantly grow our renewable energy output from 6.6 GW to over 10 GW by 2030," said Michael Glass, head of EnBW's generation portfolio development for EnBW, one of Germany's major energy companies, and the majority stakeholder in He Dreiht.
"With the installation of the first V236-15.0 MW, we have reached an important milestone for both the He Dreiht project and our offshore ramp-up," said Nils de Baar, president of Vestas Northern & Central Europe, "which helps Germany build a more secure, affordable, and sustainable energy system."
While new clean energy installations like He Dreiht will help consumers save money on electricity, the best way to take control of your energy costs is by investing in solar panels, which can bring your electricity costs down to $0. In some cases, you can even sell excess energy back to your local utility company. EnergySage is a free service that helps to find the best savings on solar in a given area.
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