Off-grid German Village Banks on Wind, Sun, Pig Manure

Frank Zeller

Feldheim (Germany) (AFP) - If Germany has taken a pioneering though risky role in shifting to renewable energy, then the tiny village of Feldheim -- population 150 -- is at its vanguard.

The hamlet near Berlin is Germany's first to have left the national grid and switched to 100 percent local, alternative energy, swearing off fossil fuels and nuclear power decades before the rest of the country plans to near the same goal.

Electricity now comes from a wind park towering over its gently rolling fields and reaches homes through Feldheim's own mini smart grid.

More than 99 percent of the wind power is sold into the national system, along with electricity from a solar park on a former Soviet military base.