The growing wind power sector is expected to play a pivotal role in an ambitious plan launched Thursday by the UK government to overhaul the nation’s antiquated and overburdened electricity market.

The announcement noted current arrangements have to be reformed to allow equal access to the electricity market for wind power and other renewable electricity technologies.

A government press release said the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Treasury together have started consultations on fundamental reforms to the electricity market to ensure the UK can meet its climate goals and have a secure, affordable supply of electricity in the long term.

It may look like one machine, but the average wind turbine is made up of 9,000 different components. Each of these needs to be manufactured, transported and put together, and a blip or delay at any one stage can affect the whole process.

The supply chain is crucial to the wind energy industry, with 75% of the total cost of energy for a wind turbine is related to upfront expenses such as the cost of the turbine, foundation, electrical equipment and grid connection.

Many of the materials used in wind turbines – such as stainless steel, aluminum, glass and carbon fibres — are also required in other industries, making a smoothly operating wind power supply chain all that more important.

There’s a great deal of exposure and chatter on the internet these days to two recent North American newspaper columns that are highly positive of wind power when it comes to public health issues.

One of the columns, published 26 November in The Oregonian, noted that “in fact, with no air or water pollution emissions, wind energy is essential to reducing public health impacts from the energy sector.”

Written by scientists Robert J. McCunney, Robert Dobie and David M. Lipscomb, the column went on to say that “while there are legitimate issues worth debating with regard to wind energy development, public health impacts are not among them.”

The Greek government is convinced that investing in renewable energies is the most efficient way to reshape the country’s beleaguered economy, Greek Energy Minister Tina Birbili told Wind Directions magazine recently.

A few months ago, the government raised the 2020 renewables target to 20% – higher than the 18% goal set in the EU Renewable Energy Directive. Birbili explains that this is because “boosting green development” is seen as the best way for Greece to achieve its “energy, environmental and economic growth targets”.

The new legislative framework, passed in June this year will help, she says. It should speed up permitting processes, remove barriers to grid connections and kick off the development of offshore wind energy. The next step is to extend and reinforce the grid, and improve connections to other countries.

One of the biggest grids-related buzzes in the last couple of years has been the coming together of ten countries to promote an interconnected power network in the northern European seas. At the GRIDS 2010 event in Berlin I caught up with Jan Hensmans from Belgium’s Economy Ministry, who explained the ‘North Seas Countries Offshore Grid Initiative’ (NSCOGI) in more detail.

Why did Belgium decide to get involved in NSCOGI?

We saw the huge energy potential of the north seas and we had been involved in the ‘pentalateral energy forum’ with Germany, France, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, but five countries were not enough! So we set up a meeting with those and additional countries and the ministers signed a political statement on 7 December 2009. Then we organised a high level meeting in Ostend with EWEA – at which we agreed to sign a memorandum of understanding, which we will do on 3 December in Brussels.