By Justin Wilkes

All 27 National Renewable Energy Action Plans have now been submitted to the European Commission. We at EWEA have done an analysis of the plans.  As expected they show that the EU as a whole will exceed its target of 20% of energy from renewables by 2020.

Taking all 27 National Renewable Energy Action Plans together we see that EU countries expect to meet 20.7% of their energy consumption from renewables.

This would mean that 34% of all electricity in the EU in 2020 would come from renewables – 14% from wind energy alone: making wind Europe’s leading renewable energy source.

There’s no shortage of developments in the US offshore wind power sector these days even though there is still not a single wind turbine generating power off the nation’s eastern coast.

Capturing most media attention last week was Deepwater Wind which announced its plans to construct the Deepwater Wind Energy Center (DWEC), the first of the ‘second generation’ of offshore wind farms in the US.

Deepwater said the new facility would have a capacity of approximately 1,000 megawatts (MW) and the ability to act as a regional offshore wind energy center serving multiple states.

Almost 10,000 people have taken part in the EWEA 2010 campaign by adopting wind turbines or voting for the ones their friends had adopted in order to show their support for wind energy.

The ‘Breath of fresh air’ campaign is coming to an exciting point in just a few days: EWEA will be able to announce the two winners of the ‘tell a friend’ contest who will win a trip to Denmark and Switzerland.

One prize is a weekend in Copenhagen including a wind farm visit organised by the Danish Wind Industry Association. Denmark is the world’s wind energy pioneer with more than 20% of its electricity being produced by wind. Denmark is also home to major wind turbine manufacturers and its capital, home to the oldest monarchy in the world, has numerous museums, world-class modern architecture and a network of canals and cobbled squares that will take you back in time.

Much has already been written on the transformative power of wind energy – revitalising declining towns and harbours with new employment and industry.

Sweetwater, Texas, is no exception. Texas leads the US for wind energy installations, with 9,410 MW of installed capacity at the end of 2009. The wind turbines that now dot many of the wide Texas plains have brought money and as many as 10,000 jobs to the Lone Star State, reports the latest Wind Directions.

Signs of this new “wind rush” are everywhere near Sweetwater — from the ubiquitous turbines, to the cover of the local phone book that features a galloping horse and a turbine, to the local newspaper that promotes wind turbines as part of its logo, to the corporate identity of Sweetwater town itself.

It’s that time of year again when the world’s attention shifts to the overwhelming need to limit and then radically reduce greenhouse gases caused by burning fossil fuels.

Organised by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the talks that started Monday in Cancun don’t appear to be laden down by the heady excitement that was palpable when last year’s annual conference began in Copenhagen.

As the world now knows, that optimism soon turned sour as the resulting so-called  Copenhagen Accord was neither a legally-binding treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol which lapses in 2012 nor a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that are causing global warming.