Last week, I had the opportunity to visit Germany for Berlin Energy Transition Dialog, a multi-country ministerial panel discussion on energy and the transition towards economic viability and better efficiency to reach COP21 targets.

We visited Feldheim, Germany’s first community to become completely energy self-sufficient. A village with 40 homes and 140 residents, it generates electricity using windmill, solar, and biogas sources – till date, they have not had a single minute of power outage. The village has 42 wind turbines generating 500KW to 3 MW. A biogas plant generates 530 KW using pig and cattle manure. They pump excess power back to the grid and so far 160,000 MWh has been sent to the grid over the last 8 years!

I also saw the world’s biggest windmill – the Enercon E126, which generates 7.5MW of power! Enercon produces 17 windmills in a week. Quality, performance, and efficiency are critical and the turbines have been running for around three decades without outage! Germany’s efforts over several years have resulted in over 30% of energy from renewables and they are targeting 50% energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Here is an opportunity to implement the green energy vision set by ELCITA and lead by example. By encouraging and enforcing companies to commit to using renewable energy and facilitating its availability and management, ELCITA can do our bit for a greener future.