BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - At the turn of the year, 1566 wind turbines with a total capacity of 8.5 gigawatts (GW) were in operation in German waters. This is according to a report presented on Tuesday by the consulting firm Deutsche Windguard. This means that the installed capacity of German offshore wind turbines increased by 0.4 GW.

According to the report, offshore wind power accounted for 5.2 percent of German electricity generation last year. A total of 23.5 terawatt hours of electricity were generated - 4.9 percent less than in the previous year.

According to the German government's targets, Germany should generate at least 30 GW of energy annually from offshore wind farms by 2030, at least 40 GW by 2035 and at least 70 GW by 2045. By way of comparison, the Emsland nuclear power plant, which was one of the last to be taken off the grid in Germany last year, had a 1.4 GW reactor./hrz/DP/jha