Since investors first approached farmers in Freiamt about installing windmills in the 1990s, the humble village has become a green-energy hub. Today, it produces 17 percent more power than it needs.
In 2007, the village generated 14.3 million kilowatt hours of electricity, or 2.1 million more than it used. That’s enough to power 600 additional German homes. For locals, who make their living mainly from tourism and agriculture, the turn toward green energy was less about big ideals than finding new income streams that wouldn’t harm the soil and forests.
“We’re no eco-rebels,” says Mayor Hannelore Reinbold-Mench. “We’re simply a community making a living off the land and all it has to offer.”The idea first came in the late 1990s, when a group of investors from Hamburg started approaching farmers in Freiamt about leasing land for a wind farm.
