Artur Trinidade at the Boom and Bust panel, EWEA 2013
Wind power reached a significant milestone in Europe last year, surpassing 100 GW of installed capacity. And, with some of Europe’s mature wind energy markets slowing down, where does wind power go from here and what is holding its further development back?
Artur Trindade, Portuguese Secretary of State for Energy, said that we need to stop thinking of wind energy on a national or even regional basis but instead on a Europe-wide level. “We need to increase the size of the market: we should start thinking about continental markets to optimise supply and demand.”
Speaking at EWEA 2013 in Vienna, Trindade said that market barriers in the electricity market and grid congestion were two significant obstacles to this. For example, between Portugal and Spain there are good electricity interconnections, but to France and therefore to the rest of Europe, connections are poor.
“France is not cooperating, we cannot cross the country which influences our capability to cooperate with central EU states,” he said.
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Anni Podimata, VP of European Parliament
Wind will be at the centre of Europe’s power needs, meeting 50% of electricity demand by 2050, Robert Clover from MAKE Consulting said today. Moreover, “after 2020 wind is the cheapest technology, it is scaleable and it has minimal water requirements,” he added.
Speaking at EWEA’s 2013 Annual Event in Vienna, Clover said onshore wind will achieve parity with other electricity-generating technologies feeding into the grid in Europe by 2015, followed by offshore in 2022/2023.
Clover’s opinion was backed by several high-level speakers at EWEA 2013 including Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency, who said that almost all onshore wind projects in Europe will be fully competitive with gas very soon.
Clover added another element to the cost of energy debate by saying that if carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology is added to thermal generation, then costs could rise by up to another 50%.
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Fatih Birol at the EWEA 2013 Opening Session
Fossil fuel subsidies – which amounted to half a trillion US Dollars worldwide in 2011 – are effectively an incentive to pollute and as such are “public enemy number one to sustainable energy development,” Fatih Birol, Chief Economist at the International Energy Agency said at EWEA’s 2013 Annual Event in Vienna on Monday.
Christian Kjaer, EWEA CEO, added that European citizens are transferring a rapidly rising share of their wealth to a handful of fossil fuel exporting countries. “In 2009 the EU spent €274 billion on fossil fuels imports – 2.1% of its GDP, a level which increased by €200 billion or 70% over just three years to 2012,” he said. “Today, EU citizens are spending half a billion Euros more each day on fossil fuel imports than they were three years ago,” he added.
“Fossil fuel subsidies do not make sense,” Birol said. Subsidies keep fossil fuels artificially cheap and without a phasing out of fossil fuel subsidies, we will not reach our climate targets. “I hope governments pay attention this,” Birol stated.
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This week, from 4-7 February, Vienna is a hive of wind energy activity as delegates from across the sector and from the world over descend on the city for EWEA’s 2013 Annual Event. But what is this year’s event all about, and why should you attend or follow updates on EWEA’s blog? We spoke to Julian Scola, EWEA’s Communication Director, and Malgosia Bartosik, EWEA’s Events Director, to find out.
What do you expect the hot topics of the event to be?
Julian: Wind energy, like most sectors across Europe, is clearly experiencing tough times. There’s the undercurrent of economic strife and governments have wobbled in their support for renewables in general which has created investor uncertainty. With this background, I think there will be two key debates at EWEA 2013: where the new markets are, in particular the promising growth rates in eastern and central Europebut also beyond Europe; and finance. The financial crisis has meant that banks and utilities that used to lend to wind no longer do so. The sector is therefore looking to new financial horizons like pension funds and insurers. New sources of finance are coming into the market but there is still a lack of understanding and communication between the two worlds – EWEA 2013’s finance track will feature discussions that will begin to close that gap.
Why should I attend?
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Wind energy can be controversial when it comes to public acceptance, even if opinion polls show the public are largely in favour. We talk to Anna Stanford, Public Affairs Manager at RES and Lead Session Chair at EWEA 2013 in Vienna next month, to get the low-down on the issues and the solutions.
Have public acceptance issues risen over the last few years?
I’ve been working in the wind industry in the UK since 1992 and wind energy has always been controversial, polarising opinion at both a local community and national political level. Groups set up specifically to oppose wind have been active consistently since then and have influenced politicians and the media; ironically over the same period opinion polls have shown that public support for wind has remained consistently high.
While back then other markets did not seem to be experiencing the same level of controversy as the UK, this has changed, with anti-wind groups becoming increasingly well-organised globally and active in key markets (for example France, Canada and Australia). In the UK, while the majority of the public remain supportive of wind energy, it remains controversial and the issue is increasingly combative on the national political stage.
Why do you think this has occurred?
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