ESSEN, Germany, Feb. 14 (UPI) -- German energy company RWE Innogy said Friday it expects to have its Dushorner Heide wind farm in northwest Germany fully commissioned by the summer.
The company said the first series of wind turbines were connected to the grid in Lower Saxony this week.
"It will be possible to commission the entire wind farm in the second quarter of 2014," the company said in a statement.
A total of 13 turbines will be able to produce as much as 53,500 megawatt hours of electricity at peak capacity each year. That's enough to meet the demands of 16,000 average households and offsets the equivalent of 40,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year, the company said.
The European Union said the amount of renewable energy connected to the German grid quintupled from 1990 levels by 2009, the last full year for which the EU published data. As of 2009, more than 40 percent of the renewable energy online was in the form of wind power.
The European Commission last month called for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 40 percent from the 1990 benchmark by 2030, an increase from the 20 percent target envisioned for 2020 for members of the EU.
