It’s a sure bet that when people descend upon Berlin next week for the grids conference that the European Wind Energy Association has organised, delegates attending the event will still be buzzing from recent timely news out of Brussels.

Those attending the two-day conference — “GRIDS 2010: the backbone of Europe’s energy future” — will almost assuredly be discussing Wednesday’s communication from the European Commission that €200 billion is needed to upgrade Europe’s gas and electricity grids over the next 10 years.

Some of the chatter around the coffee tables will also probably focus on another Commission communication — released on 10 November — which noted that the European Union is unlikely to achieve its 2020 targets without regional energy investments in the order of €1 trillion over the next decade.

By guest blogger Elke Zander

Finland is making huge steps to exploiting the power it has in the air, explained Anni Mikkonen, Executive Director of the Finnish Wind Power Association, at the Energia10 event in Tampere, Finland where EWEA brought its ‘Breath of fresh air’ campaign this week.

Two major obstacles to the development of wind energy have been addressed by the government and are currently in decision process with the Finnish parliament. Firstly, the lack of feed-in tariff to support wind energy. This is due to change from January 2011, the government says. The Finnish Wind Power Association is certain that with a feed-in tariff a major hurdle will be overcome, although Mikkonen stresses that the tariff levels are quite low, making near shore sites the most profitable in terms of wind energy.

Another issue has been spatial planning. Until now, two different plans had to be submitted: a local master plan and a local detailed plan. A new law has been designed now to only require the local master plan. This law proposal is with the parliament for decision as well.

By Guest blogger Angelika Pullen, Global Wind Energy Council

Many developments in China can only be described in superlatives, and wind power is no exception. When I first visited Beijing to attend the ministerial Beijing Renewable Energy Conference (BIREC) in 2005, the city looked very different, and so did the wind energy industry. Back then, China only had around 1,000 MW of installed wind capacity, and when the government used the conference to announce its target of reaching 30 GW of wind capacity by 2020, this seemed nearly insanely ambitious.

And yet, a mere five years later, China has already achieved this target, 10 years early. Not only that – industry experts predict that at least 40 GW worth of wind turbines will be operating in China by the end of this year; possibly more. Given the current difficult situation in the US, there is even a distinct possibility that the world’s largest economy would have to cede its place as leading wind power country to China at the end of December this year. If that doesn’t happen, it almost certainly will in 2011.

What explains the dramatic growth of wind power in China? Genuine political commitment is certainly the deciding factor, something the US has been lacking to date. In 2005, the Chinese government passed the Renewable Energy law, which attracted both foreign and domestic investors to flock into the market. Nearly all large European, US and Indian wind turbine manufacturers established themselves in China to secure a piece of the (very large) cake. But China now also counts more than 30 domestic wind turbine manufacturers, three of which are now among the world’s leading suppliers, as well as an entire supply chain serving the industry.

Harnessing offshore wind would be cheaper for the U.S. than continuing to drill for oil and gas off the Atlantic coast and it would also create more jobs, according to a new report issued this week.

An analysis by Oceana, an international organisation focused on ocean conservation, also found that a modest investment in offshore wind could supply almost half the current electricity generation on the East Coast.

The report, called “Untapped Wealth: The Potential of Offshore Energy to Deliver Clean, Affordable Energy and Jobs,” noted that the disastrous consequences of the April oil rig explosion and leak in the Gulf of Mexico underscore the high costs of heavy U.S. reliance on fossil fuels.

IEA members

New figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show that wind energy is covering an impressive slice of the national electricity demand in countries around the world.

No stranger to being top of the wind energy league, in 2009 Denmark still showed the way with wind energy covering 19.3% of the national electricity demand. Coming in a surprise second on the IEA list is Portugal – last year wind covered 15% of the country’s electricity demand.

Portugal’s Iberian neighbour, Spain, falls third with 14.4% of the electricity demand met by wind power. Fourth and fifth position were awarded to Ireland and Germany with 10.5% and 6.5% respectively.