INDUSTRY TAKING ON UTILITIES

Stadtwerke Geesthacht is peeved at having to buy electricity from an Enercon 500 kW, owned by Hamburger Asphaltwerke (HAM), at the high EFL rate, while HAM buys all its electricity from the grid on a favourable long term contract. This utility attitude seems to be stopping other industry from owning and operating wind plant in Germany. But the Beta oil refinery at Wilhelmshaven, on the coast of Lower Saxony, is planning to install a 16.5 MW wind station on its industrial site. The utility backlash against this commercial operation of wind plant is as yet of an unknown quantity.