Good news: Wind power is now the most important source of electricity in Germany. Twenty years ago, no one would have imagined this. There's still more to come.
For years, Germany’s wind energy success story has been the subject of worldwide admiration. Delegations from elsewhere in Europe, US states, and numerous emerging economies came to see for themselves, leaving inspired by our approach. Yet instead of looking back with pride and pressing ahead with determination, we were stricken by the fear of success and slowed the pace of development, continuing to rely on gas and oil from Russia as supposedly cheap energy sources. China seized this opportunity to copy the German model and become the market leader in wind technology. Thousands of jobs in our domestic wind industry were lost. Today, the gravity of this error is becoming clear.
With Russia’s war on Ukraine and the Zeitenwende, including in relation to dependence on Russian energy, the consequences of decelerating the energy transition have come back to haunt us. Had Germany pursued its path with more alacrity and consistency, industry and consumers would not have been so hard hit by the ever-rising energy prices caused primarily by a distorted energy import market. Added to this are high tax burdens, which have made the conversion of wind power into stored energy, hydrogen, or synthetic, emission-free fuels uneconomical. But it is by no means too late to turn this situation around. In just a few years, we can establish a totally new basis for our economy.
I recall the year 2020, when, as a member of the Schleswig-Holstein state government and after a long struggle, I was able to secure the designation of two per cent of the state’s land area as priority zones for wind energy. This laid the foundation that enabled Tobias Goldschmidt, my successor as minister for the energy transition, to announce in August this year that the target of 10 gigawatts of onshore wind energy generation capacity had been achieved. This alone represents half of the output of the entire nuclear power sector in Germany at its peak. Wind energy is now the most important source of electricity in Germany. Twenty years ago, this would have been unthinkable.
While the myth of the “expensive energy transition” is currently being peddled, this could not be further from the truth. According to surveys by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), wind energy – at five to 10 cents per kilowatt-hour – is by far the cheapest form of electricity generation after ground-mounted photovoltaics. Even modern gas-fired power stations incur costs that are almost twice as high, not to mention the production costs of nuclear power, which are many times higher, without even taking into account increasing shortfalls in output due to climate-related shutdowns. The truth is that wind energy is our strongest safeguard against the “hidden” cost drivers that are increasingly becoming visible.
While wind energy has the potential to create jobs and generate added value in many parts of Germany and Europe more broadly, in addition to guaranteeing an affordable supply of electricity, our dependence on conventional energy sources poses an ever-growing threat to security and prosperity. The war in Iran, with the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, has brought home once again how vulnerable we are to supply bottlenecks and price fluctuations. What’s more, the consumption of gas and oil on the world market inevitably leads to additional income for Putin’s Russia, which still exports large quantities of these commodities as well as a significant proportion of the world’s uranium, allowing it to finance what is now the fifth year of its war against Ukraine.
As the scorching summer of 2026 draws to a close, the immense economic burden caused by rapidly advancing climate change is also becoming apparent. The economy recorded losses of hundreds of millions of euros in June and July alone, not to speak of massive healthcare costs and the many heat-related deaths, which defy quantification and are, above all, a terrible human loss. The scale of municipal investment required for heat resilience measures is becoming clear. Alongside defence, infrastructure renewal, and industrial transformation, this represents the next major strain on public finances. It has become abundantly clear that Germany’s most important source of electricity – wind power – is its most effective safeguard against these ever-rising costs and represents a huge opportunity for Germany and Europe to place their industrial and technological base on a solid footing for the long term.
This text was translated by Katy Nicholson.
Get Involved - Presidents' column
Get involved! There’s no other way to be real – thus the message of Heinrich Böll, and, to this day, his encouragement is inspiring us. With this column the Presidents of the Foundation involve themselves in current social and political debates. This column will appear each month, authored, in turn, by Jan Philipp Albrecht and Imme Scholz.