Anni Podimata, VP of European Parliament

Unemployment is plaguing Europe, and just this week Anni Podimata, Vice President of the European Parliament told delegates attending EWEA’s 2013 Annual Event in Vienna that youth unemployment has reached “unprecedented levels.”

But despite the jobs crisis, one sector – wind power – said yesterday that it still needs to hire more than 5,000 workers per year in order to fill a considerable skills shortage in the industry.

“By 2030 there could be a skills gap of 15,000 workers if current hiring levels continue,” Andrew Garrard, Chairman of renewable energy consultancy GL Garrard Hassan, told journalists attending a press conference in Vienna. “We are going to 400 GW [of wind power capacity] by 2030 – and that takes a lot of people,” Henning Kruse from Siemens and Chairman of TPWind, added.

The wind industry is facing tough times, as many industries in the ongoing economic crisis are, but what do industry leaders think are the consequences of this difficult period?

The question of whether or not consolidation is or will be taking place in wind energy was key for the six CEOs sitting on the high-level panel at EWEA 2013 in Vienna this morning. “There are a number of companies suffering and not managing balance sheet in tough times,” Alfonso Faubel, Senior Vice President of Alstom Wind Energy, said. “Some players are competitive, others are changing the way they operate,” Stephan Ritter, General Manager Europe, GE, said.

While CEOs did not identify high levels of market consolidation in the onshore wind energy market, they did see consolidation taking place in offshore: Only companies with knowledge will survive in offshore, Faubel said. “We need to have companies in offshore who are in it for the long run,” Jan Kjaersgaard, CEO of Siemens Wind Power, added.

Attentive crowd at EWEA 2013

France’s wind energy targets might be in jeopardy due to legal wrangling over the country’s support scheme for wind energy, the French Wind Energy Association, FEE, warned yesterday.

“France was a promising market, but regulatory problems have led to a decline in new wind energy installations,” Nicolas Wolff, FEE President, told journalists attending EWEA’s 2013 Annual Event in Vienna.

Wind power installations in 2012 were down 35% compared to 2011 installations, “far below what they should be,” Wolff said, adding that in 2012 only 750 megawatts were built when the sector needs to be adding 1,200/1,300 MW per year to meet the country’s targets of 25 GW by 2020.

Inigio Sabater Eizaguirre

Significant growth opportunities and benefits can be expected for wind power in central and eastern Europe – including Romania, Poland and Turkey – EWEA’s freshly launched report available at EWEA’s 2013 Annual Event in Vienna and online, says.

“These emerging markets are not only important in their own right, but they have increased perceived importance given the state of wind energy markets elsewhere in Europe,” Pierre Tardieu from EWEA said on launching the report today.

Inigio Sabater Eizaguirre from Vestas said the fact that Europe is still suffering from the economic crisis is a “big incentive” to look for new markets outside the well-established ones in Europe.

Emerging markets “are experiencing teething problems very similar to what we’ve experienced in the rest of the world,” Sabater Eizaguirre said, adding that these problems are not insurmountable.