Image source: VDMA NRW
13 companies and initiatives from NRW presented themselves at the NRW state joint stand at WindEnergy in Hamburg, the world’s largest leading trade fair for the onshore and offshore wind industry.
WindEnergy 2024 counted around 1,600 exhibiting companies, 122 of them from North Rhine-Westphalia, and over 43,000 participants from around 100 countries were able to see the innovative strength of North Rhine-Westphalian companies for themselves in the Hanseatic city from September 24 to 27, 2024.
13 companies and initiatives from North Rhine-Westphalia presented themselves at the NRW joint state stand at WindEnergy in Hamburg, the world’s largest leading trade fair for the onshore and offshore wind industry. Wind energy is a key industry and an important economic factor for North Rhine-Westphalia. It creates jobs and is an important component of a sustainable energy supply. North Rhine-Westphalia is not only an excellent location for wind energy use, but also traditionally a strong industrial location, as 30 percent of the wind energy suppliers in the VDMA are based here.
Digitalization was one of the future topics at the top of the WindEnergy agenda at this year’s trade fair. Simulations of AI-supported energy generation forecasts or AI-supported trading illustrated how processes can be optimized with the help of artificial intelligence. However, the industry urgently needs personnel to shape the future, which is why a particular focus of the last two days of the trade fair was on recruiting young talent.
Produktion NRW, the cluster for mechanical engineering and production technology in North Rhine-Westphalia, welcomed numerous visitors and a delegation from Turkey to the joint state stand in order to bring them into contact with local companies.
Importance of wind energy
The high number of exhibitors from NRW at WindEnergy is proof of the innovative strength and performance of Germany’s most populous federal state. Wind energy is a key industry and an important economic factor for North Rhine-Westphalia. It creates jobs and is an important component of North Rhine-Westphalia’s sustainable energy supply. North Rhine-Westphalia is not only an excellent location for the use of wind energy, but also a traditionally strong industrial location: 30 percent of the wind energy suppliers in the VDMA are based here and it also has the highest location density of gearbox manufacturers for wind turbines in the world.
According to an evaluation by the State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection of North Rhine-Westphalia* (LANUV NRW), 139 wind turbines with a total output of 825 megawatts (MW) were approved in the first quarter of 2024 (as of 4.4.2024). This corresponds to an increase of around 40 percent compared to the same period last year and almost a third of the nationally approved capacity of 2737 MW. This already corresponds to the result for the whole of 2022 and 43% of the capacity approved in North Rhine-Westphalia in 2023. This puts North Rhine-Westphalia ahead of Lower Saxony (504 MW) and Schleswig-Holstein (356 MW) nationwide. In addition, 28 new plants (133 MW) were commissioned in the first quarter of 2024. This means that 3,796 turbines with a capacity of 7,329 MW are currently in operation in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Further information
– www.vdma.org/ag-wind
– www.wirtschaft.nrw/themen/energie/erneuerbare-energien/task-force-ausbaubeschleunigung-windenergie-nrw