Next week Copenhagen will be buzzing with wind energy professionals keen to find out the latest market and technology developments at the EWEA annual conference and exhibition. The EWEA blog spoke to Michael Nørtoft Frydensbjerg from Siemens Wind Power who is chairing a session on 17 April aiming to uncover how wind power is driving the modernisation of European grids…
What are the limitations of the current EU grid and why does it need to change?
The electricity grid in Europe is mainly designed with an eye to distributing electricity from large power plants. Today power generation is more decentralised and large wind power plants are located away from traditional power plants. These changes in the power generation pattern have to be considered when designing the electricity grid in order to avoid bottlenecks and system collapse.
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With just over two weeks to go before the biggest gathering of wind energy professionals takes place in Copenhagen at EWEA 2012, Felix Ferlemann, CEO of Siemens Wind Power and Chair of this year’s event, tells the EWEA blog of his ambition for the industry and of the challenges that lie ahead…
Where and what are the biggest challenges Siemens Wind Power is currently facing?
The biggest challenge we face is that we have to bring down the cost of wind power. We need to make it competitive with conventional energy sources, because price pressure is growing and wind power cannot be dependent on subsidies forever. The industry will need to invest massively in innovation and industrialisation. But these investments will only be realised if companies have a stable and profitable pipeline of projects. That is our main message to policy makers: We need reliable support schemes so we can make wind power competitive within the current decade.
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In just a few weeks Copenhagen will be a hive of wind energy activity as EWEA’s annual conference and exhibition gets going. In the run-up to the event, the EWEA blog spoke to Ana Estanqueiro, Chair of a session aimed at discovering how to integrate large amounts of wind power into Europe’s grids…
What are the main obstacles in Europe to integrating large amounts of wind power?
The main barriers these days are much less on the “hardware” side (access to transmission and distribution grids) and much more on the “software” side: grid-operation principles and electricity market rules. These are currently not well adapted to wind power and need to evolve in order to smoothly incorporate wind-powered electricity. Today, difficulties related to grid access are largely for offshore projects where investments are extremely high and usually need to be coordinated with other economic sectors.
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Ireland is on the threshold of becoming an exporter of energy. Having traditionally imported fuel or burned locally-produced peat to provide energy, Ireland is now looking at bringing in €6bn a year in export revenues in less than a decade.
The source of this potential “windfall” is the increasing number of wind farms around the country. This growth is encouraged by the government, whose Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte today announced the opening of a new support scheme for renewable energy at the Irish Wind Energy Association’s annual conference in Dublin.
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A coalition of eight leading European energy companies has written a letter to the European Commission and Presidency of the European Council calling for legally binding 2030 targets for renewable energy, carbon cutting and energy efficiency as well as for the modernisation of energy infrastructure.
The letter was signed by SSE, Eneco, DONG Energy, Public Power Corporation, ACCIONA, Sorgenia, EWE and EDP Renewables.
“The lack of binding targets post 2020, an ETS [Emissions Trading System] failing to stimulate investment in renewables, and an outdated energy infrastructure severely threaten to wreck the needed modernisation and decarbonisation of the European energy sector,” the letter published by Euractiv says.
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