Page 50: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (April 2012)

(Deutsche Offshore-Testfeld und Infra- struktur-GmbH&Co.KG) executive and overall project director of Alpha Ventus. After the technical problems of the first operating phase had been solved suc- cessfully, the wind turbines have reached a high availability. The turbines were operational fornearly 98% of the entire period. ClausBurkhardt: "This speaks for the reliabilityof German engineering in the wind en-ergy industry. It also shows that our op- erations and maintenance concepts arefully validated." On the other hand, Burkhardt points outthat an offshore wind farm in Germany requires a considerably higher wind yieldcompared to its onshore counterpart inorder to compensate for the significantly higher investment and operational costs. "This is a result of the difficult overall pa- rameters here in Germany as opposed to other European countries, such as the re-quired long distances from the coast andthe correspondingly large water depths. They require elaborate offshore engi- neering for the turbines and foundations,as well as a corresponding infrastructure,such as suitable construction ships." Ac- cording to Burkhardt, these factors con- tinue to have a negative effect on the eco- nomic feasibility of German offshore wind farms and discourage potential in- vestments. Thus, the German offshore wind indus- try first needs sufficient financial assis- tance to establish this young industrysector in Germany. DOTI executive Rudolf Neuwirth of E.ON also underscores the great chal-46Maritime Reporter & Engineering News Self-propelling jack-up barge WIND-LIFT 1 in ops.