Germany: HRH Prince Joachim Commits to Wind Energy

His Royal Highness Prince Joachim’s attendance at this years HUSUM WindEnergy on September 19th 2012 emphasises Husum’s long association with neighbouring Denmark, which from the very first has been a partner of what is now the industry’s biggest trade fair. His Royal Highness held the opening speech at the Windmasters Dinner in the Castle at Husum:

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Living on the German-Danish border as I do, I have followed the rapid development in the wind industry here and elsewhere with great interest. The many windmills on both sides of the border most definitely are a testimony to the growing importance of wind power in the production of electricity in Denmark and Germany.

The interest in it and the desire to promote this development is one of the many things that link our two countries. And that is why I looked forward to visiting the HUSUM WindEnergy 2012 and gaining a fresh impression of the latest technological development in this field.

If we consider things more deeply, we find that wind power has always been extremely important to us. For centuries it played a key role in seafaring. The wind was quite literally the driving force in international trade, and essential for journeys to far-off places. And it was also the wind that helped to make sure our ancestors got their daily bread. I am thinking now of the many windmills that once ground corn into flour, and were also used in other industrial undertakings as well.

We have long known that windmills can also be used to produce electricity. Poul la Cour was a Danish scientist and educator who, in 1891, blazed a trail in this field when he constructed a wind-operated power plant for the Volkshochschule Askov. A so-called “experimental mill”. This made la Cour famous internationally as the inventor of wind-generated electricity. His contemporaries also called him the “Danish Edison”.

However, it was not until after the oil crises of the 1970s that interest in wind energy really accelerated, and it became an important element in the energy policies of many countries.

Progress has been rapid in Denmark and Germany over the past centuries, and we have found that windmills have got bigger every year. Today, many places have regular wind power plants that make an important contribution towards electricity supplies. At the same time, a new market has also been created for smaller windmills that can supply individual homes or a small number of them together.

In 2000, Denmark’s windmills produced around 10% of the country’s electricity consumption. Today this figure is about 26%, a significant proportion. However, I would like to add that if we look across the border to our neighbours in Schleswig-Holstein, they certainly do impress us. Unless I am mistaken, 46% of their energy consumption is now provided by wind power. That is indeed a very large amount, and it clearly indicates where the development is headed.

The same also applies to the Husum WindEnergy, which has also grown year on year. Today, we can see a tremendous range of wind power stations here, ranging from very small ones to very big ones for on and offshore wind parks. The many exhibitors at the event and large number of visitors are clear confirmation of the tremendous importance of the industry.

So it has been a particular pleasure for me to see the extent to which Denmark’s windmill industry is represented at the fair. And I hope that Denmark’s presence at this year’s event will again lead to interesting contacts and a further reinforcement of the close relationships between the German energy sector and other countries.

Finally, I would like to remind us that in his poem “The Town”, the German poet Theodor Storm described Husum as “The grey town by the grey sea”. Today we can add that the HusumWind has helped to make the town internationally famous.

I have found my visit to the fair tremendously interesting, and I am very much looking forward to the social part of it here this evening. 

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Press release, September 21, 2012; Image: Husum WindEnergy