Vilma Radvilaite

The European Commission has just published a mid-term review of its European Energy Programme for Recovery which reveals that offshore wind energy is the strongest performer under the scheme. But what is this scheme all about and how exactly is offshore wind the strongest? The EWEA blog talks to Vilma Radvilaite, Regulatory Affairs Advisor at EWEA to find out…

What is the European Energy Programme for Recovery?

Back in 2009, the EU launched a plan to help Europe face-up to the financial crisis and rising concerns about energy security and climate change. Some €4 billion was allocated to the plan – called the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) – focusing on projects that were capable of making quick and effective use of significant amount of funding.
Three areas were considered to meet these criteria: offshore wind energy, gas and electricity infrastructure projects and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

How much was allocated to each area?

Electricity and gas infrastructure projects received the largest slice of funding – €2,365 million for 44 projects, followed by CCS – €1,050 million for six projects and lastly offshore wind – €565 million for nine projects.
Why is wind energy the strongest performer?

What’s interesting about these amounts is how quickly money invested actually turns into real projects on the ground. By December 2010 one offshore wind project was already providing electricity to the grid – just over one year after the plan was agreed. That’s pretty fast. The mid-term review also found that another offshore wind energy project had installed foundations last year, and that orders placed for another two offshore wind farm projects had contributed to the development of industrial clusters in innovative technologies in Germany.
Meanwhile, none of the CCS projects were ready by the time of the review.
Wind energy is the strongest performer because it has produced the greatest ‘real’ results relative to the amount of funding it received.

Have any of the projects helped to create jobs?

Yes! The offshore wind projects under the EEPR created a total of 4,000 direct jobs and more than 1,000 more jobs indirectly by the time the review was carried out in May 2011. And that’s with the smallest amount of funding. To compare, CCS projects – which received almost double the amount of funding – have created just 400 jobs. Electricity and gas infrastructure, meanwhile, created 5,000 jobs.

What do the results of the review show?

Offshore wind energy projects are an ideal way to stimulate economic growth and create jobs, as shown by this review. At the same time wind energy cuts carbon emissions and improves Europe’s energy security by creating electricity in Europe and reducing the need for fuel imports.
Investment in wind power is clearly a way to help restore Europe’s economy to health.

Read the full mid-term review

Read the EWEA press release

P.N.Rasmussen

According to former Danish prime minister Poul Nyrup Rasmussen, the offshore wind energy sector could help Europe get back on its feet after the current financial crisis. “If the sector understands their role I’m sure they could take the lead in bringing Europe out of the crisis, as the first mover”, he added in a recent interview with Wind Directions.

He even considered the sector’s biggest challenge in the next few years to be addressing its potential role as “the breaker in the markets going against the [financial] crisis.” As a Dane and a former politician, Rasmussen is no stranger to wind energy. Now, he has consolidated his familiarity with the sector as Chairman of Lindoe Offshore Renewables Centre (LORC), a Danish organisation that tests and demonstrates technologies for harvesting renewable energy offshore.

He believes strongly in the potential of the offshore wind energy sector – that it is “the most promising sector you could ever see”. However, it needs “take some jumps in technology”, he adds. “We need to solve this reliability problem, this predictability problem and we need to bring down costs”, Rasmussen told Wind Directions. “We need to solve the grid problem and the [supply] chain problem. So there are a lot of new challenges at sea that need to be solved.” He also believes that costs need to come down.

 As well as the industry, the EU also needs to take certain steps, believes Rasmussen. “I think number one, you must set yourself ambitious targets and stick to them. Number two, you must combine targets with concrete planning in your country and in the European Union. Number three is you have a documented implementation so industry can see the targets, this is planning, this is implementation. And then you need to have long-term financing which is especially important in these crisis years”, he says.

Read the full interview in the latest Wind Directions

The interconnector cable, known as the FABLink, will connect France, the Channel Island of Alderney and mainland Britain. Edward Davey, UK Energy Secretary, said he recognises the “importance of further developing new electricity interconnectors between our two countries in order to strengthen further the linking of our grids, improve the security of our energy supplies and facilitate the integration of intermittent energy sources.”

Meanwhile, the UK announced another new electricity link last week – a subsea interconnector between Hunterston in West Scotland and the Wiral peninsula in England near the Welsh border. The 418 km cable will bring renewable energy from Scotland further south helping the UK to meet its carbon cutting targets. It is due to be online by 2016.

“The additional capacity from this link will provide a significant boost to renewable energy projects that we are developing in Scotland in order to bring clean energy to consumers throughout the country,” Ignacio Galan, Chairman of Scottish Power said.

The Scottish government wants to increase its renewable power generation from 10 TWh today to 50 TWh by 2020 – in order to meet its target of 100% renewable electricity by 2020. Scotland already has over 2,500 MW of wind power capacity.

These announcements come as European Commissioner for Energy, Günther Oettinger, last week warned that Europe must co-operate on grids at a European level or face declining global competitiveness.

Find out more on free movement of electricity here: www.freedomforelectricity.eu

The results of a new study, which come as EU institutions debate the ‘infrastructure package’ – the European Commission’s draft proposals for updating and interconnecting EU electricity grids – show  just what people in Brussels think of electricity grids and the market. Here’s what they had to say:

The vast majority of respondents agrees or strongly agrees – 77% – that creating a single European market in electricity would create more competition, improve security of supply and help integrate renewables. Moreover, an EU single market in electricity should reduce electricity prices in the long-run as a result of improved competition, the majority of respondents said.

But one of the most arresting findings was that 81% said that creating a single European market in electricity – with the necessary grid infrastructure – should be one of the EU’s policy priorities: EU decision makers take note!

In other findings, 76% said the European Commission is “right” to propose an increase in EU financial support for grids, and just under 90% said the EU should take action to speed up permit granting procedures for projects of European importance.
EWEA, Eurelectric and Europacable – alongside many other associations – are calling for the extension and upgrading of Europe’s grids, as well as for the creation of a single market in electricity.

Read more about the freedom for electricity campaign here.

For a full summary of the survey results, click here.

Europe’s installed wind capacity increased by 10,281 MW to 96,616 MW by the end of 2011, the Global Wind Energy Council’s (GWEC) annual statistics show. In the EU, the new total was 93,957 MW.

Asia was the second place regional leader with 21,298 additional MW of installed wind capacity, bringing its cumulative total to 82,398 MW. North America was in third place with an additional 8,077 MW last year increasing its total capacity to 52,184 MW.

“Despite the state of the global economy, wind power continues to be the renewable generation technology of choice”, Steve Sawyer, GWEC Secretary General, said last week in an accompanying press release. “2011 was a tough year, as will be 2012, but the long term fundamentals of the industry remain very sound.”

Sawyer also said that, for the second year in a row, the majority of new installations were outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development nations, and new markets in Latin America, Africa and Asia continued to drive market growth.

In terms of national leaders, the GWEC statistics show that China had the most cumulative installed wind power capacity — 62,733 MW — at the end of 2011, followed by the United States with 46,919 MW. Germany was in third place with 29,060 MW followed by Spain with 21,674 MW. In fifth place was India with 16,084 MW. France came in sixth with 6,800 MW, followed closely by Italy with 6,747 MW and the UK with 6,540 MW. Canada was in ninth place with 5,265 MW and Portugal came in tenth with 4,083 MW.

Regionally, Latin America and the Caribbean had 3,203 MW, the Pacific Region had 2,858 MW and Africa and the Middle East had 1,093 MW. In all, the world total of installed wind capacity increased by 41,000 MW — or 21% — to 238,351 MW by the end of last year.

Sawyer also noted that about 75 countries now have commercial wind power installations, with 22 of them already passing the 1 GW level.

He added, however, that the global wind power sector “will be hard pressed to keep the industry’s growth up to its potential without a global price on carbon and other measures to account for the real costs to society of conventional power generation”.