It’s all happened so fast. A few years ago we used paper filing systems and looked up information in books. Now we have the internet and its wealth of information literally at our finger tips.

More and more wind energy companies are catching on, setting up blogs, Facebook accounts, Twitter feeds. But do we know what we’re doing? Does it have an impact? And is the impact worth the effort?

EWEA’s own blog was set up in 2010, and is updated four times a week. As word has spread, so has our number of readers, which now numbers around 2,500 amonth.  Other wind energy blogs include Tuuleenergia from Estonia, and RenewableUK’s blog.

Maxime Verhagen is Dutch Minister of Economic Affairs – and so responsible for energy. In the latest Wind Directions, he explains why his government has cut spending on offshore wind energy.

The Minister starts by re-affirming the Dutch government’s commitment to the European renewables targets for 2020. “To meet these targets the government will stimulate the most cost-effective renewable energy mix”, he says.

He also agrees “on the potential of offshore wind for the Dutch economy”, adding that “The Netherlands has numerous companies with an outstanding record in designing, constructing and maintaining offshore wind farms.”

The EU Commissioner for Climate Change emphasised the role of targets in boosting investments in renewable energy at an EWEA event last night.

“It makes good business sense to invest in renewables yet people aren’t doing it”, said Commissioner Connie Hedegaard, pointing out that “this is one lesson we’ve learned in Europe in the last ten years – it helps when we have targets and it helps even more when we have binding targets.”

Earlier in the debate, she specifically referred to her “hope” for “milestones” in the European Commission’s upcoming 2050 Energy Roadmap, due out in December.

In the EU quarter of Brussels, discussions are ongoing about the EU budget for 2012 – and for the years up to 2020. But how does it all work? The latest Wind Directions finds out.

Just how much money is it?

An overall EU budget is decided for a seven-year period known as a “multi-annual financial framework”, or MFF. At the moment the EU is in an MFF running from 2007 to 2013. The overall budget for those seven years is €976 billion.

We’re often wondering how much bigger wind turbines will get – 10 MW, 20 MW, even more? But what about the practicalities of getting those huge components from the factory to the wind farm site?

In the latest Wind Directions, we discuss how new transport equipment is constantly being designed to transport the up to 85 metre long blades and 200 tonne weight nacelles and towers. In fact, the transport can represent 10% of the delivery costs.