[en] The use of renewable energy for the continuously growing global population is becoming increasingly important. These forms of energy not only broaden the urgently needed resource base, but are also free from emission of CO₂, SO₂, NO_x etc. The Federal German Government early recognized this and has provided more than DEM 4000 million for this purpose since 1973. Together with Japan and the USA, Germany belongs to the three leading nations in the world in R and D on the application of renewable energy. It has by far the largest and most broadly based programme in Europe. The technical and economical progress of wind power is very promising in Germany. It has scale demonstration programme '250 MW Wind'. Since 1991 another important impetus has been the sources (wind power presently 0.1728 DEM/kWh). In 1994, the rated wind power capacity was doubled to 643 MW. Electricity production in 1994 was around 1000 million kWh or 0.2 % of total German electricity production. The often discussed goal of producing one or more per cent of the German electricity by wind power seems to be attainable on a medium time scale by modern medium scale wind turbines or even large scale turbines. This is based on the promise that various nontechnical barriers will be overcome. (author)