Wind farm Aachen-Münsterwald
The project
In 2018, we put five wind turbines in the Münsterwald forest near the Belgian border into operation, marking another important step toward climate-friendly power supply for the city of Aachen. The joint project with Stadtwerke Aachen (public utility company) not only drives the energy transition in the region, it also sets an example against the energy policy of neighboring Belgium, which continues to rely on nuclear power. The new wind farm with a total capacity of 16.5 MW produces 40 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity per year. This corresponds to the annual consumption of around 12,500 households.
Always focusing on nature conservation
When planning wind farms in commercial forests, special attention is always paid to compensatory measures and ways to improve species and nature conservation on site. In the Aachen-Münsterwald project, further concrete measures were taken on site in addition to the obligatory compensation payments. Individual forest areas were reforested and additional habitat was created for wildcats and amphibians. In addition, the flight behavior of the occurring bat species was analyzed in order to adapt the nightly shutdown times of the energy plants to the flight habits of the bats. All these precautions far exceed the requirements of the region's species protection guidelines. For us, these things are self-evident: after all, climate protection and species conservation are two sides of the same coin.
