One solution for older wind plants is to enter a power purchase agreement (PPA) with a company such Greenpeace Energy, which has provided a lifeline to Reinhard Christiansen’s pioneering wind plant at Ellhöft in Schleswig-Holstein.

1 January 2021 marked the beginning of the end of a key phase in Germany’s Energiewende. On this date, the pioneers of Germany’s energy transition stopped receiving the feed-in tariff that, for the last 20 years, has guaranteed them a fixed price for generating electricity via wind, solar or biomass.