Wind turbine dismantling disgruntles citizens

About 220 wind turbines in the German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania will have to be dismantled after 2020 because they lose eligibility for guaranteed feed-in tariffs after 20 years of service, Juliane Lange writes for Ostsee-Zeitung. It is a “growing problem” for the state, since the turbines “can no longer be operated at a profit”, she writes. But the dismantling of wind power plants is complicated and costly, prompting disgruntled reactions from many of the paper’s readers on its social media channel, Lange writes. Readers complain that wind power “has always been about profit instead of the environment” and call the “large-scale construction of wind turbines” an “economic mistake”.

For background, see the CLEW factsheet Polls reveal citizens’ support for Energiewende.