Standing beside a windswept junction near Germany’s Baltic coast, Thea Funk points at a stretch of land to the north.

“They want to build 12 turbines up there, each one 240 metres high. And down there there are plans to put up more, somewhere between six and eight,” she explains, gesturing to a field across the road. “We’re going to be encircled.”

Behind her, 30-odd people line the road holding signs bearing anti-wind energy slogans. Residents of the Friedland Moor in northeast Germany, they are convinced their landscape is about to be destroyed for the gain of landowners and energy magnates.

Rural protests against wind farms are increasing in Germany and the effect has been dramatic on the country's flagship green energy programme. Energiewende, one of the most ambitious state-led policies in the world, is now stalling, with key targets disappearing into the wind.

Last year new wind farm projects plummeted by 55 percent as energy companies baulked at the growing number of legal complaints made by restive locals and wildlife funds.