German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the Western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

German energy giant RWE has begun dismantling a wind farm to make way for a further expansion of an open-pit lignite coal mine in the western region of North Rhine Westphalia.

I thought renewables were cheaper than coal. How is this possible?

  • Onihikage@beehaw.orgEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think any of what you’ve said there is true? By my estimation, and based on numbers from USGS.gov, given the average household energy use of 893 kWh per month, and the Keyenberg-Holzweiler wind farm’s total capacity of 10 MW (each turbine was only 1.3 MW) which translates to 3 GWh per month, the entire wind farm powered less than 3400 homes. To say that each turbine powered 16,000 households (and thus the entire farm powers 128,000) is off by nearly two orders of magnitude.

    Furthermore, RWE says they have 7.2 GW of wind turbines under construction, which if true you’ll note is hundreds of times more power generation than the wind farm they’re tearing down, and definitely not a sign of a company that’s trying to get more fossil fuels. This coal mine they’re expanding is apparently the last bit of coal they’ll be allowed to dig up, and their ability to do so upon decommissioning of the wind farm was negotiated 20 years ago. This is not a recent decision, nor is it a reversal of the general trend to build up wind power and cycle down coal.