Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog is famous in the annals of wind energy. The polder in Schleswig-Holstein’s Dithmarshen kreis hosted Germany’s first wind farm in the 1980s. Dubbed Windenergiepark Westküste, the site’s 30 wind turbines included early AeroMan 30 kW, Enercon E-16, and elektrOmat 25 wind turbines.
I made a pilgrimage to the site several times during the 1980s and 1990s. At the time Growian, Germany’s failed giant, was still standing. That was long ago, in a land far away.
Time moved on. Growian was taken down in 1988 and the polder became Windtest Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog. Then MAN installed its WKA-60, another failed design—a hot dog stand on a stick one Dane called it.
The site has been repowered several times since my early visits. In various guises Windenergiepark Westküste operated from 1987 to 2019.
2025 Update
The German Windpower Museum’s Arne Jaeger recently visited the polder and reported on the status.[1]
The visitors center had been closed for many years and the exhibits have been removed. At one time DNVGL occupied office space in the building, but they’ve moved out as well.
The vistors center exhibits included a 30 kW Aeroman nacelle and a scale model of MAN’s Growian, Germany’s failed giant from the early 1980s. The Aeroman nacelle was removed recently says Jaeger.
Sometime in 1997-1998, MAN’s WKA-60 was taken down. The nacelle was placed on the ground and the interior was accessible to visitors. Access is now closed. The exterior of the machine hasn’t aged well and is looking very forlorn. The wind industry has passed it by.
The site is now occupied by a wind farm of multimegawatt Enercon turbines. The site has “lost its magic,” says Jaeger of the polder’s glory days as the frontline in the development of wind energy.
Death at Test Site
On 3 April 1987 Bernard Saxen, 42, was fatally injured inside a prototype 600 kW wind turbine from Husumer Schiffswerft. He and three other technicians were inside the tower when the turbine went into overspeed. The rotor and nacelle toppled off the tower damaging the tower where the men were working. Saxen was able to climb down the tower on his own, but died later in the hospital. According to Windpower Monthly’s report on the accident, the turbine was using an experimental active stall control.
Growian Built to Fail
A lot has been written about Growian. In 2024, the German Windpower Museum acquired one of the massive blade tips from the giant wind turbine. Jaeger found the red-painted blade tip on a farm near the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog test site where the turbine had been installed by the German government in the early 1980s.
Here’s what Craig Morris had to say about the venture.
“At Kaiser Wilhelm Koog, a rural community at the mouth of the Elbe River just west of Hamburg, Germany’s best minds had attempted to build a two-blade 3 MW turbine from scratch in 1983. It failed, and not just because the engineers had scaled up too quickly (no working turbine anywhere close to that size had ever been built). Rather, the utility firms involved wanted the project to fail, so they sabotaged it. “We need [that turbine] to prove that wind power won’t work,” an executive at RWE stated at a board meeting in 1982 (the minutes were later leaked). With R&D funding, firms got their money anyway.”[2]
- Kaiser-Wilhelm-Koog Photos (Photos from the 1980s and 1990s.)
- German Museum Acquires Giant Growian Blade Tip
[1] Jaeger, Arne. “Wind historians and KWK.” email. 11/17/2025.
[2] Morris, Craig. “The Modern Wind Sector – and the Energiewende – Turns 30 Today.” EnergyTransition.Org, August 24, 2017. https://energytransition.org/2017/08/the-modern-wind-sector-and-the-energiewende-turns-30-today/.
