Wind farm Streumen
Please note: This page was machine-translated. If anything is unclear, the German version is authoritative.
Wind farm Streumen
With 21 turbines, the Streumen wind farm is currently one of the largest wind energy sites in Saxony (as of December 2013), alongside the Saubusch wind farm in the district of Central Saxony.
Priority area for wind energy
In the regional plan for the Upper Elbe Valley/Eastern Ore Mountains, this area is designated as a priority area for wind energy use. These priority areas are intended to achieve both the wind power share of Saxony's climate protection targets and a spatial concentration of wind turbines. Numerous parameters regarding distances to residential areas, etc., must be taken into account in the planning process.
Between 1998 and 2001, the first turbines from manufacturers AnBonus, DeWind, and Vestas were erected here. These wind turbines belong to the former power range of 600 to 850 kW.
The hub heights (HH) are 58 to 74 m, with corresponding rotor diameters (RD) of 44 to 52 m.
Repowering
Since 2011, these turbines have been gradually replaced by new generations of technology, a process known in technical jargon as repowering. These turbines are specially optimized for inland conditions with lower wind speeds. The hub heights reach up to 149 m, and the rotor diameters also grow to over 100 m. Here you can see an Enercon E82/138m hub height and two Vestas V90/125m hub height turbines. These are also subject to aviation marking requirements (red markings, night lighting).
Large hub heights and rotor diameters increase electricity yield and thus full-load hours while reducing rotor speed (Fig. 1), as wind speeds increase exponentially with height (Fig. 2).
In 2013, the first 3MW wind turbine installed by the manufacturer Enercon (HH135m) generated around 7.31 million kWh of electricity. This is enough to supply just over 3,000 households in Saxony. If this replaces lignite-fired electricity, then around 7,000 tons of environmentally harmful carbon dioxide emissions can be avoided annually with just one such wind turbine.
Climate protection
The German government wants to increase the net share of electricity from renewable energy sources (wind energy, solar energy, biomass energy, hydropower, and geothermal energy) to around 40 percent by 2020. Wind energy will account for the largest share of electricity, as it has reached a high level of technological development. Wind energy is therefore no longer more expensive than electricity from new gas or coal-fired power plants.
Source: Jan Stoye, Dresden