Rolling out an industry - EWEA June 10...Rolling out an industry How wind energy went global ... liquidity squeeze in banks meant more traditional ... 6 WiNd direCTions | June 2010

T h e e u r o p e a n w i n d i n d u s T r y m a g a z i n e

June 2010Volume 29/No 3

inside: Wind Directions survey – the results!

Rolling out an industryHow wind energy went global

CoNNie HedegaardEU Climate Commissioner

Xabier ViteriCEO, Iberdrola Renewables

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3WiNd direCTions | June 2010

| contents |

Wind Directions is published five times a year. The contents do not necessarily reflect the views and policy of ewea.

Publisher: Christian Kjaer Editor: sarah azauWriters: sarah azau, Chris rose, Crispin aubrey, elke zander, zoë CaseyDesign & production: www.inextremis.beCover photo: Keenpress publishing/sisse Brimberg & Cotton Coulson

viewpoint 5we can prevent unnatural disasters

brussels briefing 6The latest eu news

mini focus 12The show must go on: eweC 2010 in poland

wind news 17

interview 18Connie hedegaard, eu Climate Commissioner

readers’ survey - the results 22

financial crisis 26The financial crisis: what now for wind energy?

wind bites & wind dates 28

ewea news 29

focus 30The wind power industry goes global

guest columnist 38globalisation starts at home

interview 40Xabier Viteri, Ceo, iberdrola renewables

first person 44ice, wind and polar bears

country focus 49a closer look at estonia...

wind energy basics 51wind, electricity and the grid

science corner 52is 100% renewable energy feasible?

eWea welcomes new members 55

the last word 59a blossoming worldwide market

T h e e u r o p e a n w i n d i n d u s T r y m a g a z i n e

June 2010Volume 29/No 3

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| viewpoint |

The horrendous media images of the spreading oil slick in the gulf of mexico tell of the need

for a transformation of the global energy supply perhaps more powerfully than words ever could.

This is not the first and it will not be the last environmental disaster associated with fossil fuels. we must turn our backs on them once and for all. otherwise, we will continue to be dogged by the risks associated with traditional fuels – whether that be oil spills, air pollution, health risks, unreliable third country suppliers or wildly fluctuating import prices.

one solution, wind energy, is already provid-ing part of the answer. europe has led the way in developing this green, free, abundant power source for decades, reaching 75 gw of total capacity last year, and its success story is now being repeated in other areas of the world.

A global storyin the us, the wind energy industry shattered all records in 2009, installing nearly 10 gw of new capacity, enough to serve over 2.4 million average american homes. The approval this may of the country’s first offshore wind farm, adding 420 mw of capacity at Cape Cod, is another major step forward.

China was the world’s largest wind energy market in 2009, more than doubling its capac-ity from 12.2 gw in 2008 to 25.8 gw, adding a staggering 13.8 gw of capacity. The asian giant is also moving offshore: the Chinese first offshore wind farm, 100 mw at shanghai east sea Bridge, has been built and is at the grid con-nection stage.

The increasing importance of the north american and asian wind markets and home-grown industries will unavoidably have an effect on european manufacturers, which have always been at the top of the field in wind technology, and had 60% of the global market in 2008.

in this issue of Wind Directions, on page 30, we consider what the global expansion nature of wind energy capacity, and wind turbine manufac-turing capacity, means for europe, the pioneer in the field.

Rising from the ashesThe oil leak is not the only event in recent weeks to have caused many people’s thoughts to turn to the world around us.

The icelandic volcano erupted just before the 2010 european wind energy Conference, organised by ewea, began in warsaw, causing a hasty reorganisation of most of the conference by ewea’s events team. in the end, 80% of confer-ence sessions went ahead and over 3,000 visi-tors made it to the event.

one of the key messages to come out of eweC, as we discuss on page 12, was that renewables can provide all europe’s power by 2050, with half coming from wind. This is the only way in which europe can cut its carbon emissions by 80-95% by 2050.

Financing the windBut in order to ensure enough renewables are put in place to transform europe’s energy supply, there needs to be enough investment in the sector. when the financial crisis erupted, rather like the volcano – or the oil spill - its effects quickly spread far and wide. The wind power sector remained buoyant thanks to institutional investors and utilities, but the liquidity squeeze in banks meant more traditional forms of project finance became harder to come by.

in this Wind Directions, on page 26, we go back to the topic and ask: what is happening now concerning wind energy financing, and what is the outlook for our industry?

Financial crises, oil leaks, volcanoes: these are dramatic words and images for a one-page article. But we need to have a sense of the real drama our planet is in. some of the potential catastrophes, such as erupting volcanoes, cannot be prevented; others, such as the environmental impacts of our energy use, mankind now has the technology to do something about. we can pre-vent unnatural disasters. action has to be taken and quickly; a whole-hearted, permanent swing towards renewable energies and a zero-carbon future needs to be made all around the world this year before we allow our politicians to spend billions more of our money trying to mop up oil rather than investing in a job-creating, clean, eco-nomically sound power source: the wind.

We can prevent unnatural disasters By Christian Kjaer

Chief Executive, EWEA

6 WiNd direCTions | June 2010

| brussels briefing |

The eu countries party to the north sea offshore grid initiative began

work this spring, with a workshop at which ewea gave a presentation. The uK, germany, France, Belgium, netherlands, Luxembourg, denmark, sweden and ireland launched the initia-tive in december 2009, and have more recently been joined by norway.

The aim of the initiative is to help co-operation on the development of offshore wind infrastructure in the north sea and

irish seas. To do this, those govern-ments involved will analyse the economic potential of a common offshore grid infra-structure and the costs, identify each country’s ambitions for offshore renewa-bles and work to facilitate a compatible development of the necessary electricity infrastructure and regulatory environment needed across the different countries.

The ten countries involved are looking to sign a memorandum of understanding in autumn 2010.

Countries start work on North Sea grid initiative

debate opens on europe’s energy Strategy 2011-2020

The european Commission has launched a public consultation on

the energy strategy 2011-2020, with a deadline of 2 July for comments.

The aim of the consultation is to discuss the energy policy ideas put forward by the spanish presidency in January, which included working to-wards a well-connected power grid as a stepping stone to a functioning internal energy market, updating the trans-euro-pean energy network (Ten-e), establish-ing smart grids “as the infrastructure of the future” and aiming for carbon-free electricity by 2050.

The european Commission’s energy strategy for europe for 2011-2020 should be published early next year.

Power networks must become “europe-wide”, says Commission

europe’s grids need to be mod-ernised and extended across the

continent to allow more renewables into the system, meet the 2020 targets and enable the development of an internal energy market, says the european Commission.

in a recent update document on the implementation of the trans-european energy networks (Ten-e) for 2007-2009, the Commission also writes that the eu’s strategic energy objectives need to be clarified and the infrastruc-ture priorities thoroughly debated.

Furthermore, eu grids need ad-equate investment to allow the neces-sary changes to take place, says the Commission. This should include not just network user tariffs but sometimes public funding also.

european generation adequacy measures will help internal electricity market

ewea welcomed the Council of european energy regulators’ (Ceer)

recent call for evidence on “generation adequacy treatment” in electricity – that is, whether power generation capacity in the eu is sufficient to meet demand. The aim of the call for evidence was for Ceer to set out its views on generation ade-quacy and how it needs to be addressed.

“Ceer rightly states that european legislation has not been prescriptive and explicit enough, as there is practically no regulatory framework for addressing generation adequacy needs in an internal energy market”, said paul wilczek, ewea regulatory affairs advisor. “it is good to

see that Ceer wants to address genera-tion adequacy measures with a more pan-european approach than is currently the case, as this will help achieve an internal energy market in europe.”

ewea also stresses in its response the importance of taking into account the known costs of wind energy com-pared with fluctuating fuel costs when planning investments in european power generation.

“investing in wind energy is a sound choice for europe’s economic and energy future, as its costs are known from the outset compared to fossil-fuel based con-ventional power generators”, said wilczek.

photo: daniel de Kievith



renewable energy flexibility mechanisms examined by the Netherlands

a recently published report, pre-pared by the energy research

Centre of the netherlands, provides a preliminary assessment of the scope for cost-effective use by the dutch government of each of four flexible mechanisms available to eu member states to achieve their respective mandatory renewables target in year 2020. The flexible mechanisms, defined in the renewables directive 2009/28/Ce, are:

• statistical transfers between member states.

• Joint projects between member states.

• Joint projects between member states and third countries.

• Joint support schemes.The report states that statistical

transfers and joint support schemes are the flexible mechanisms with the most potential for cost-effective use. The dutch government is advised by the report to explore each of these options. The report argues that in practice well-designed joint support schemes are likely to turn out having most potential.

The report states that the joint projects between member states mechanism may well turn out to provide some interesting opportuni-ties. potential collaboration between the netherlands and a selection of (four) other member states, and some technologies to focus upon, are identified by the report and the report argues that the flexible instrument of joint projects between member states and third countries will have a limited potential for cost-effective contribution to the dutch renewables.

The european Commission has published a strategy to promote the

uptake of electric and energy efficient vehicles in europe.

The european Commission is to develop an eu standard for charging up the vehicles by 2011, and in the same year launch an eu-wide electromobility

demonstration project that will assess consumer behaviour and test new devel-opments in the area of standardisation for electric vehicles. it will also start to initiate the development of “charging infrastructure” – public sockets where anyone can charge up their electric vehicle.

New grids project launched

a €30 million eu-funded grids project that will look into how to operate grid

systems with large amounts of wind and other renewables has now been launched. The ‘TwenTies’ project, which will run for three years and will be funded by the

7th Framework programme, will develop demonstration projects to help overcome obstacles to a larger integration of wind power. The project involves Tsos, ewea and over 20 partners, with the spanish system operator red electrica in the lead.

european Commission boosts research funding in 2011 budget

The eu’s 7th Framework programme for research will get a 13.8% increase

in funding in 2011, according to the european Commission’s draft budget for 2011. This will take it to a total of €8.6 billion, the biggest amount ever commit-ted to a framework programme.

“The increase in research funding is extremely important for the wind sector, which itself needs increased public and private research financing”, said Vilma radvilaite, ewea regulatory affairs advisor. “however, the Commission needs to clearly indicate in the budget how much money will be allocated for

the european wind initiative, and through which programme or programmes, to en-sure europe reaches the 2020 renewa-bles targets”.

alongside this, funding to the trans-european transport and energy networks will grow by 16.8% (€1.3 bn), and over €1 billion has been set aside for the execution of the european economic recovery plan, which includes offshore wind projects.

The Council will make its position known on the draft budget in July, followed by the european parliament in october.

photo: dreamstime

New eU strategy to promote electric vehicles



Project launched to help guide offshore wind planning

The newly launched seanergy 2020 project will recommend how

to remove maritime spatial planning policy obstacles to offshore renewable power generation.

increased activity within europe’s waters has led to a growing compe-tition for space between shipping and maritime transport, oil and gas, ports development, fisheries and offshore renewables.

This can be exacerbated by the very different planning regimes and instru-ments in various member states and a lack of coordination between them.

“The project will recommend ways maritime spatial planning (msp) can be better coordinated to help meet the 20% renewables targets, and it will consider the grid infrastructure needed to develop offshore renewables”, explains glória rodrigues, ewea’s senior research officer. ewea is coordinating the 24 month project.

seanergy will be made up of three main phases: examining national msp practices in the first phase, international msp instruments in the second, and the compatibility between different levels of msp in the third.

Commission publishes implementation document for recovery Plan

The recently-published implementa-tion strategy for the eu’s economic

recovery plan should offer a glimpse of the unspent money that will potentially be available for renewable energy projects.

a sum of €565 million is to go to nine offshore wind projects, as stated in the recovery plan, which has an overall envelope of €3.98 billion. however the european Commission states in the implementation plan that “There re-mains an amount of around €115 million (less than 3% of the total) which cannot be committed.”

according to the Commission, the precise amount of leftover money will

be known in the autumn of 2010. “The Commission departments are currently assessing options for the possible real-location of unspent funds”, it says.

allocating this money to wind and other renewable energy projects, as initially proposed by the european parliament, would be the ideal way to stimulate europe’s economy”, said Justin wilkes, ewea policy director. “wind energy decreases europe’s dependence on fuel imports, creates technological leadership, provides jobs, helps fight climate change and is contributing to lifting europe out of its current economic woes.”

offshore advisory group to focus on bottlenecks

ewea’s offshore wind industry advisory group (owig) is set

to develop the industry’s position on specific bottlenecks in offshore development. over the next six months, dedicated groups or “task forces” will examine issues that can impact the offshore industry’s development, like cable connec-tions, the supply chain, project financing and health and safety. The results will be published by the end of 2010, with the possibility of extension in order for the task force to take action to tackle the issue in question.

owig is made up of 40 key offshore wind industry players. originally set up to shape the first ewea offshore report, owig is now focusing on the supply chain, and on making sure the wind industry is able to deliver for the 2020 targets.

any ewea members that wish to apply to join an owig task force should contact nicolas Fichaux at [email protected].

offshore roadmap to be developed

a new eu project is to facilitate knowledge-sharing on offshore renew-

able energies, and develop a roadmap for the sector. ewea is a partner in the project, funded under the eu’s seventh Framework programme, entitled “offshore renewable energy Conversion platforms Coordination action” (oreCCa). The roadmap should also help define investment opportunities for the

ocean, wave, and offshore wind energy sector and help work towards a vision and strategy for the sector.

The project kicked off in march and will last 18 months. Two workshops are planned, in november 2010 in amsterdam and may 2011 in italy. The project is coordinated by Fraunhofer iwes and more information will soon be available on www.orecca.eu.

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Europe possesses an energy source which could power it seven times over: the wind. European companies are world leaders in wind power, generating thousands of jobs. Wind energy reduces Europe’s dependence, and spending, on imported fossil fuels. It lowers electricity prices and emits no CO2. Over the next 12 years, Europe must build new power capacity equal to half the current total. We must use this opportunity to construct a modern power system that meets the challenges of the 21st century. Give Europe a breath of fresh air by adopting a wind turbine atwww.ewea.org/freshair

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| mini focus |

Everything should have gone perfectly. The venue in Warsaw was booked two

years beforehand. EWEA’s events team had been working on the details of the

programme, exhibition and social events for over a year. It was all organised, down

to the last detail.

unfortunately, even ewea’s events team were unable to plan for a volcano in iceland start-

ing to erupt six days before the european wind energy Conference 2010 (eweC) was to begin. as news started coming in of flights being grounded, they hurriedly started putting contingency meas-ures in place.

“as soon as we heard that flights were not taking off, we made and communicated our deci-sion to go ahead with the conference to all reg-istered participants by email and to the greater public via the website www.ewec2010.info”, explains malgosia Bartosik, ewea’s head of Conferences and events. “we contacted our speakers to see who it would affect, and set up skype links for those who would not be present or, where necessary, found replacement speak-ers. we were in touch with the exhibitors to see what could be done to help – we provided local hostesses to staff the stands if needed, and even helped set some up ourselves. going ahead with eweC 2010 was the right decision

– although numbers were a little down, it was a real success on all levels.

in the end, over 3,000 people made it, by train, car and boat, to eastern poland, and many more tuned in on the web for the 80% of confer-ence sessions that went ahead, despite the lack of flights until the penultimate day of the event. Those people heard the ambitious message of the eweC opening session, that wind power can provide 50% of eu power by 2050.

“2050 might seem like a long way off, but the decisions we take today will have a big impact on our energy supplies in 40 years’ time,” said arthouros zervos, ewea president, told delegates.

“given the long life of power plants our vision for 2050 has to be reflected in the construction of new power plants from at least 2020 onwards.”

wind energy is already a mainstream power source in europe: annual market growth has been impressive over the past 10 years - 23% on average.

By Sarah Azau

Photos: EWEA

The show must go on: EWEC 2010 in Poland


| mini focus |

“wind can realistically provide 50% of power sup-plies by 2050 provided the necessary changes to infrastructure and markets are made,” said Christian Kjaer, ewea’s Chief executive. “The potential is there and the industry is ready. all we have to do is maintain current growth rates on and offshore”.

professor zervos and Kjaer agreed that “re-newable energy technologies can provide 100% of europe’s power supplies by 2050 without any further contribution from any so-called low-carbon technologies in the form of nuclear or carbon capture and storage (CCs).”

“it is valid to have the viewpoint that we, in europe, should have a mix of renewable en-ergy, nuclear energy and CCs if the technology becomes available. But those who claim that renewables can’t do it alone; those who claim that we need nuclear fission, CCs and nuclear fu-sion to remove carbon completely from the power sector are wrong. we can do it using the dozen or so renewable energy technologies that are already commercially available,” added Kjaer.

he explained that europe needs to intercon-nect its electricity networks as a necessary step towards a truly integrated european electricity market. “a pan-european grid is the first prior-ity, but a clear vision of, and a strong political commitment to, the long-term energy mix is also essential.”

Freshening upThe opening session also saw the launch of ewea’s ‘Breath of Fresh air’ campaign, with its website www.ewea.org/freshair. The aim of the campaign is to spread the message that the wind can power europe seven times over, that european wind companies are world leaders and

job creators, that wind energy reduces europe’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, lowers elec-tricity prices and emits no Co2.

“over the next 12 years, europe must build new power capacity equal to half the current total,” Kjaer told eweC participants. “we must use this opportunity to construct a modern power system that meets the challenges of the 21st cen-tury. we need to give europe the breath of fresh air it clearly needs.”

news of the campaign is already being spread far and wide through the ‘adopt a wind turbine’ tool. This online contest allows anyone who wants to choose a turbine to adopt anywhere in europe, and then vote for other people’s turbines.

“at eweC 2011, we will add up the votes, and the adopted parent of the turbine with the most will win a trip to Copenhagen to visit a real one!” explains elke zander, ewea’s Campaigns officer. at the time of writing, over 1,000 turbines had already been adopted.

at the same time, ewea took a further step into the technological age with the launch of its blog on www.ewea.org/blog. The blog is already home to a variety of discussions, with sometimes surprising links to wind energy, such as mojito making, the uK elections and nobel prizewinners.

Number crunching

eweC 2010 went ahead despite air traffic disruptions: • over 3,000 participants made it to the event • over 220 of the 250 exhibitors were present • over 80% of the conference sessions went ahead • all the social events went ahead • 1,400 people watched the live online conference videos

Marcin Korolec, Polish Under-Secretary of State for Economy, PolandThe vast majority of exhibitors made it to Warsaw


Reporting on windeweC provided the ideal platform for the launch of ewea’s two new reports, as well as one sneak preview of an upcoming project report and newly updated factsheets.

in one of the ground-breaking reports, put to-gether by independent consultancy pöyry as, wind power is shown to have a downward influence on electricity prices. according to studies in germany, denmark and Belgium analysed by pöyry as, power prices were reduced from 3 to 23 €/mwh depend-ing on the amount of wind power. This could make a real difference to customers’ power bills.

a second study reveals how long it takes to get planning permission to build a wind farm in countries across the eu. surprisingly, in one of europe’s wind power pioneering countries – spain – it takes 57 months for all the relevant

authorities to give the green light. in Finland, how-ever, just eight months are needed. The complete report will be on www.ewea.org in June.

also, ewea published its new look, user friendly annual report, which discusses everything the association got up to in 2009, as well as its upcoming goals. it also released newly updated factsheets in a flip-calendar style designed to sit on a desk or a shelf. The factsheets gives the key figures and targets for subjects relevant to wind energy, such as grids, the climate, employment and statistics.

all the reports can be downloaded from www.ewea.org.

| mini focus |

the word on the stands

There were fewer visitors than usual, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of those who made it to warsaw.

oliver Loencker from Siemens said there had been a lot of interest in their new prod-ucts, and a great range of people to talk to – both polish and international.

Jonathan Collings from reS was glad their team came, as there was a steady flow of visitors to the stand.

Martin berkenkamp from ge energy com-mented on the commitment and dedication people had shown to make it to eweC.

Manuela Scheferling from rePower said the effort visitors had put in to come re-ally showed the event’s importance for the industry.

Frank Nielsen from LM Wind Power said the sessions had retained their usual high quality.

The EU Energy Commissioner Oettinger and Christian Kjaer, Chief Executive, EWEA

Participants listen to a

policy debate

Hanne May, Editor, New Energy and Arthouros Zervos, EWEA President


| mini focus |

Social eventsall week long, the conference sessions, earnest discussions and business talk were complement-ed by network-fuelling social events. an ewea members-only reception at warsaw’s royal castle on the monday was a little quieter than expected, but the conference reception on the Tuesday at the palace of Culture and science already looked considerable busier, the space filling up with those who had managed to find alternative trans-port. Thursday’s conference dinner in the spec-tacularly lit university of Technology drew many to hear eu energy Commissioner oettinger speak.

“wind energy had over 10,000 mw of newly installed capacity last year, making it the technol-ogy that supplied the most new electricity genera-tion capacity in europe”, he said. “This shows the european union is heading in the right direction and wind energy is leading the way.”

he also told dinner guests: “we will need smart grids, but also strong long-distance power transmission and new interconnectors”, and that renewables would be “one of the main contribu-tors to our future energy supply.”

everyone who made it to eweC 2010 had his or her own travel story.american Wind energy associationstephen miner flew from new york to washington, from washington to nice in France, then hired a car and drove to warsaw. at the gala dinner, ewea Coo Bruce douglas presented him with a prize of “most determined eweC 2010 participant”. gexpro Serviceseniko pudas drove from Budapest, which took 11 hours.ingeteamFrancisco gambarte took a car from pamplona in spain, leaving on saturday evening and arriving on monday night. The journey took 50 hours.NgK naoki hirai and nakakishi yuichi were in London for work, and were asked to replace colleagues who were stuck in Japan. They managed to take the eurostar to Brussels, then trains to Cologne, Berlin and warsaw.reSVicky dunn and Jonathan Collings hired a car in London and drove. The journey took 20 hours.Suzlonsoeren Kjaer and Lone Karsgaard drove from denmark with their col-leagues in four cars. The journey took 12 hours.Vortexpep moreno drove from Barcelona to warsaw.

tremendous travels

Flash mob dancers at the

conference reception

Hanne May, Editor, New Energy and Arthouros Zervos, EWEA PresidentConference dinner at Warsaw’s

University of Technology

“Wind energy had over 10,000 MW of newly installed capacity last year, making it the technology that supplied the most new electricity generation capacity in Europe”

WiNd direCTions | June 2010

| wind news |

aFriCa$1 billion infrastructure fund to help boost wind energyan equity fund has been launched for up to us$1 billion (€0.736 billion) to promote the development of basic infrastructure in sub-saharan africa. This includes wind power.

The world Bank’s international Finance Corporation (iFC) will invest up to us$100 million (€73.6 million) in the fund, which was set up in a joint venture between two groups: the australia-based macquarie group and the old mutual investment group of south africa.More information: www.macquarie.com

europeGE to invest €340m in European offshorege has announced plans for a €340m expansion of its european offshore manufacturing and design facilities as part of the development of its upcoming 4 mw direct drive offshore turbine.

The company is planning to in-crease its presence in norway, sweden, germany and the uK.

ge’s last offshore development was the arklow Bank wind farm in the irish sea, which has 3.6 mw turbines.More information: www.gepower.com

porTugaLVestas signs 1.5 GW deal with EDPRVestas has won its largest single order ever. it has signed an agreement with portuguese edp renováveis (edpr) to deliver 1,500 mw of turbines to north and south america and europe in 2011 and 2012, with the possibility of an ad-ditional 600 mw.

The agreement also includes a two-year service and maintenance agree-ment extendable to five or ten years, with a subsequent Technical assistance agreement for an additional period.More information: www.vestas.com

usSiemens turbines for 200 MW Texas wind project e.on has ordered 87 turbines, of 2.3 mw each, from siemens energy for the papalote Creek ii wind power plant in san patricio County, Texas. The project will have a total installed rated capacity of more than 200 megawatts (mw).

delivery is expected to begin in may 2010 and the wind farm is expected to be commissioned in autumn 2010.More information: www.siemens.com

Moving slowly towards a Climate Bill The us white house has finally un-veiled legislation on global warming. The climate change bill was published by democratic senator John Kerry and independent senator Joseph Lieberman in mid-may.

The bill sets a 2020 deadline for achieving a 17% cut in greenhouse gas emissions compared to 2005 levels, and would include incentives for renewables.

however, it is as yet uncertain wheth-er the bill will achieve the republican support needed to be passed. More information: http://kerry.senate.gov

TurKeyREpower wins 148 MW deal repower has won its biggest european wind contract ever - 148.28 mw to be supplied to developer akuo energy sas to build a wind farm in Turkey.

The project will use 3.37 mw tur-bines. it will be based in the Kirsehir province of Turkey to the east of ankara. The turbines are due to be delivered and commissioned in 2011. More information: www.repower.de

uKSmall wind turbine guide launched for businesses and homeownersrenewableuK – formerly the British wind energy association – has pub-lished a consumer guide that aims to help companies and private individuals install their own wind turbines. 14,000 small wind systems were installed in the uK between 2005 and 2009, says the group, representing 25% market growth.

The uK government’s new feed-in tar-iffs should help consumers who put up a turbine to reduce their energy bills while earning money from excess power sold back to the grid, says renewableuK.More information: www.bwea.com

17

photo: gweC

photo: fotolia.com


| interview |

Going back to the COP-15 climate change conference in Copenhagen in December, what were, or are, your thoughts on the process and the outcome?The negotiations leading up to Cop15 managed to attract an unprecedented level of political attention, and that was instrumental for the an-nouncement by most major economies of their national mitigation plans prior to Copenhagen. as it turned out, some of the major players were just not ready in Copenhagen to participate in a global decision corresponding to the high expecta-tions built up. But we saw worldwide mobilisation and for the first time the us and the emerging economies internationally acknowledged their co-responsibility in combating climate change.

Did the inability of the world’s nations to find a common cause in Copenhagen after having already discussed for two years the need for a legally-binding agreement on greenhouse gases cause a rift that can never be bridged?i certainly hope not! The Copenhagen accord falls well short of the eu’s ambition but nevertheless the very large number of both developed and developing countries that have since signed up to the accord demonstrates a broad and still growing

“We must work to develop and use the energy

market and harvest the

benefits that a well-functioning and integrated power market

can provide in terms of

wind energy integration.”

Implementing climate action

Earlier this year, Connie Hedegaard became the first ever EU Commissioner for

Climate Action. Chris Rose asked her some questions about climate change,

greenhouse gas emissions, wind power and other renewables.

support. it shows the clear determination of a majority of countries to seek global solutions and step up their actions on climate change now.

After Copenhagen, how important was it that the European Commission establish a dedicated Commissioner for Climate Action?Firstly, i think it is an important recognition of the importance this Commission attaches to the topic and to the challenge of mainstreaming climate as-pects into all sectors and policy areas. secondly, addressing climate change is such a huge chal-lenge that from a practical point of view there is certainly enough work for one Commissioner in the climate portfolio – i will be able to dedicate myself to climate change.

As that new commissioner, what is your role and how do you plan to fulfill that role?as already indicated, my role is to help ensure that the international negotiations progress in a timely way towards a renewed, robust and ambi-tious international framework. But the task is also very much to develop and push for policies within the eu that can make the eu the most cli-mate friendly region in the world and to take care that climate considerations are mainstreamed

Photo: EWEA


| interview |

into all relevant policy areas. That is a daunting task. Finally, as for all my colleagues, i have a role to play in making sure that the Commission takes the right decisions in other fields than climate action, given that the Commission works on the basis of collegiality.

Between the economic pain caused by the global recession and the leaked and/or hacked e-mails of a few climate scientists, what can politi-cians do now to restore public confidence in the UNFCCC and promote a legally-binding deal that can quickly reduce the increasing amount of carbon and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere?we can help draw more attention to the concrete benefits that determined climate action will entail for citizens, business and society at large, while continuing to develop policies based on sound science. despite all the spin suggesting the opposite in the press lately, the scientific basis remains very compelling. i am personally commit-ted to demonstrating that the economic case for europe is equally strong.

How confident are you that the EU can and will meet its legal target of a 20% reduction in green-house gases below 1990 levels by 2020? What are the obstacles to meeting this target and how can they be overcome?i have no doubts that the eu can reach the 20% target by 2020 – not least because the recession has made it easier and cheaper. Key to doing this is the timely and full implementation of the legislation and measures already put in place or presented, and at a more practical level help ease the bottlenecks and shortages of finance that has slowed investments following the crisis.

In order to get international climate talks going again in a positive way, will Europe unilaterally raise its emissions-reduction target to 30%? Should Europe raise the target to 30%?i do think by 2020 we could - and perhaps should - go even further, but before taking such decisions we must carefully consider the implica-tions. Therefore, the Commission will present an analysis of the options and impacts of going to a 30% reduction target, to be presented in advance of the european Council in June.

According to European law, wind power and other renewables are to supply 20% of Europe’s energy by 2020, which would mean about 35% of elec-tricity coming from renewables. Is this feasible? If there are obstacles to achieving this goal, how can they be dealt with?a variety of studies have recently concluded that in the longer term, much higher shares of electric-ity could come from renewables. i certainly think 35% is feasible, but it is clear that increasing shares of intermittent generation will lead to new challenges that must be dealt with, not least in terms of investments in new, more and smarter infrastructure. numerous studies, projects and new initiatives have already been undertaken or announced by the Commission in this area, many of which benefit from or rely on input from the wind energy industry.

What role do you see the wind power industry play-ing in Europe’s future plans to embrace a so-called new green economy that begins to turn its back on fossil fuels? Is there any one thing that needs to be done to allow wind power to continue to grow at its current dramatic pace?wind will clearly have a lead role, as the trend in newly added power generation capacity already shows. There is no single silver bullet that can work miracles, but the word “flexibility” in the context of how we develop and operate our power system pretty much sums up much of what is needed. we must work to develop and use the energy market and harvest the benefits that a well-functioning and integrated power market can provide in terms of wind energy integration.

What is the single most important thing that individual European citizens can do to fight climate change? spend 15 minutes browsing on our “you control climate change” web site1 and then put some of the tips and tricks into practice!1 http://ec.europa.eu/environment/climat/campaign/index_en.htm

Photo: DONG Energy

Photo: EWEA

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| readers’ survey |

nearly half (45%) of respondents to the Wind Directions readers’ survey agree that it is the “leading wind energy

magazine”, and a massive 71% think it “always has interest-ing, relevant content”.

The results of the survey have been coming in swiftly since it was launched with February’s issue, both via the paper version and electronically. in the end we had nearly 1,000 responses – to be exact, 919.

overall, readers seem more than happy with the maga-zine. over half – 57% - of respondents have recommended it to a colleague, and 73% spend ten minutes or more reading it. nearly two thirds – 64% - read several, most or all the articles per issue.

getting down into more detail, all of the different sections of the magazine were considered to have value. The most valuable sections overall all is the news from the wind indus-try - the “wind news” - (given an average score of 3.6 out of 5, where 1 is “least value” and 5 is “most value”), closely followed jointly by the main article or “Focus” of each issue, the “Country Focus” which looks at one particularly coun-try’s wind and renewable energy situation and the “science Corner”, which takes an analytical look at an aspect of wind energy technology.

it is perhaps unsurprising that the “wind news” section is so popular. 80% of the respondents to the survey work in the wind sector, while another 17% are in other renewables. Just 4% work outside the renewables industry. interestingly, many readers are fairly new to the magazine: 50% began

64% read several, most or all articles in each issue

73% spend 10 minutes or more reading Wind directions

most 14%

i don’t read it at all

Less than 10 minutes

over 30 minutes

10-15 minutes

around30 minutes

all 2%

none

Very few

several

Wind Directions is “leading wind energy magazine” say nearly half of readers

our three lucky winners of an iPod nano speak out:

“i would like to congratulate you and your team for the excellent work done with Wind Directions. There is a fantastic style and lay-out, alongside well chosen articles that allow all of us who are interested in renewa-bles to be updated with the most relevant information and facts.”

Luis marinho, portugal

“Wind Directions as well as other ewea publications are not only informative but also a really good read – during a coffee break at work but also at home on the sofa! reading Wind Directions is simply an enjoyable way to keep our-selves up-to-date with developments in the wind industry.”

agnes Fiedlerova, germany

“Wind Directions tells about wind energy in an understandable way even to those who are not yet in the business, but have taken an interest in it - like me. That is why i read Wind Directions.”

Jan-erik Bjorklund, from Finland but living in Belgium

Meet the winners

By Sarah Azau

(Continued on page 24)

30%

12%

15%

21%22%

12%24%

48%


Reading habits1. How long do you normally spend reading Wind Directions?

I don’t read it at allLess than 10 minutes10-15 minutesAround 30 minutesOver 30 minutes

2. How many articles do you read in Wind Directions on average

each issue?NoneVery fewSeveralMost

All

3. How many people read your copy of Wind Directions?

01-34-67-910+

4. On a scale of 1 to 5 please rate the statements

(1 = strongly agree, to 5 = strongly disagree):

... Wind Directions is the leading wind industry magazine

... Wind Directions helps me feel updated on policy matters

... Wind Directions helps me feel updated on industry matters

... Wind Directions always has interesting, relevant content

5. Have you ever recommended Wind Directions to a colleague?

Yes. Explain why………………………………………………

………………………………………………...........................

No. Explain why not…………………………………………..

………………………………………………...........................

Content

6. On a scale of 1 to 5 please rate the sections you regularly read

(1 = least value – 5 = most value)... Editorial from Christian Kjaer, EWEA Chief Executive (“Viewpoint”)

... Industry news (“Wind News”)... EU affairs (“Brussels Briefing”)... EWEA events (“EWEA news”)... Main news feature e.g. the financial crisis,

green electricity, offshore (“Focus”)

... Technical pages (“Science corner”)

... Not-so-technical pages (“Wind energy basics”)

... Interviews – e.g. IEA President Nobua Tanaka,

Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs,

Irish Energy Minister Eamon Ryan

12.

13. Which of the following best describes you?

AcademicConsultantEnergy providerFinancier or insurerInstitutionLibrarianManufacturerPolicy makerPrivately interestedResearcherSupplier

Other……….…………………………………………………..

14. In which country do you currently reside? ….………………………………………………………….……..

15. What version of Wind Directions do you read?

PrintPDF (at ewea.org)Both

16. Are there topics you would like to see more of in Wind

Directions? For example, feedback, letters, opinion,

SURVEY| readers’ survey |

57% have recommended Wind directions to a colleague

90% have been Wind directions readers for five years or under

57% yes

under a year50%

no 43%

over five years 10%

one to five years 40%

respondents came from a wide variety of countries around the world

Belgium 3% Finland 2%

France

germany

greece

italy

netherlands

norwaypoland

swedenTurkey 3%

uK 14%

usa 3%

other

1. How long do you normally spend reading Wind Directions?

How many articles do you read in Wind Directions on average

Advertising9. Would you consider advertising in Wind Directions?

Yes, we already doYes, we would consider itNo. Why not? ……………………………….......................

.......................……………………………….......................

10. Are Wind Directions’ advertisers pertinent to

your professional interests?Yes, veryYes, moderatelyOnly occasionallyNo, never

And finally… About you11. Do you work in renewables?

Yes, in a field related to wind energy

Yes, in non-wind energy renewablesNo, I work in another sector: ………………………………..

12. How long have you been reading Wind Directions?

Over five yearsOne to five yearsUnder a year

Which of the following best describes you?

AcademicConsultant

Thesurveyshouldtaketenminutesmaximum.

PostittousFORFREE(seeaddressonreverse)ORfaxitto+3225461944.

ThreeluckywinnerswilleachreceiveanAppleipodnano!

Pleaseemailanyquestionsorcommentstome,SarahAzau,

[email protected]+3224001034.

Thankyou!

Sarah Azau (Editor)

www.ewea.org

Your opinion is

music to our

ears!Complete our Wind Directions survey

and win an iPod nano!

W I N D D I R E C T I O N S

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Rued’Arlon63-65

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Belgium

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5%

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5%

30%


| readers’ survey |

it is very pleasing to see such enthusiastic feedback from the readers. Clearly, the fact that so many spend some time reading it, rate it well compared to other publications and find the different sections valuable is great news!

however, what is especially interesting are the recom-mendations for new sections for the magazine. many of you suggested a greater focus on jobs and careers, and it is true that this is crucial to our industry: we expect there to be 446,000 jobs in the sector in europe alone by 2020, and we are in great need of finding more workers. we will consider how best this topic can be added or approached in future editions.

The magazine would certainly be livelier with more readership feedback. But we need your letters in order to do so! you can write to me with any thoughts, comments or ideas at [email protected].

the editor responds

reading in the last year and 90% within the past five years. This may reflect the young, dynamic and growing nature of the wind industry.

of course, however satisfied readers are with the magazine, improvements can always be made. The open ended questions

on average, respondents agreed with the following statements

2.7

2.6

2.5

2.4

2.3

2.2

2.1

2.0

1.9wind directions is the leading wind

industry magazine

wind directions helps me feel

updated on policy matters

wind directions helps me feel updated on

industry matters

wind directions always has interesting,

relevant content

2.6

2.3 2.3

2.2

the most valuable sections are ‘Wind News’, the ‘Focus’ and the ‘Country Focus’

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

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on “topics you would like to see more of in Wind Directions” give a good idea of what readers would like to see more of.

although they suggest a range of options, the most frequent-ly recurring suggestions are more articles on careers and jobs, more feedback and letters, and more on technology.

Technology was another subject you wanted to see more of, and indeed, our main technology-fo-cused section at the moment – the “science Corner” is seen as one of the most valuable parts of the magazine. we will work to see how more technology can be featured in other sections of Wind Directions, and perhaps extend the “science Corner” itself from beyond its current two pages.

To all those who participated in the survey: thank you very much indeed. your feedback means a great deal and is the only real way – along with your spontaneous letters to me – of ensuring the magazine meets your require-ments. and to our three winners – congratulations: i hope you enjoy using your ipod nano!

Sarah Azau

(1 = strongly agree; 5 = strongly disagree) (1 = least value; 5 = most value)

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| financial crisis |

in september 2008 the us investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed, triggering the

worst worldwide financial crisis since the great depression of the 1930s.

in may 2009, Wind Directions took a look at the crisis and its potential effect on the wind en-ergy sector. we reported on the banks’ increased reluctance to lend money and pass on liquid-ity gained from the billions injected into them by governments.

despite this, the european wind energy indus-try remained buoyant as other investors, such as power companies with strong balance sheets had increased their investments in the sector, as had institutional investors such as the european investment Bank (eiB). a year on, we look again at the situation and ask: has anything changed?

Banks shy awayone of the immediate impacts of the crisis on the sector was the banks’ increasing reluctance to lend, especially the long-term loans needed by the wind industry.

“The number of european banks willing to loan to wind energy projects dropped from 25 or 30 in

2007 to seven or eight in 2009”, explains Tom murley from hgCapital, a private equity manager.

“The market was very slow between september 2008 and april 2009”, agrees Xavier monteau from the bank dexia.

The banks tightened their lending, becom-ing much more concerned about the size of the project and their relationship with the project sponsors. They also became more reluctant to underwrite projects – that is, to take on some of the risk associated with any financial venture.

“The banks gave preference to bigger projects, whose developers had strong balance sheets and who had worked with them before, while smaller developers struggled”, says william young from analysts Bloomberg new energy Finance.

Slow improvementat the moment, the situation appears to have improved slightly. monteau points out that dexia managed to close 14 wind project finance deals between may and december 2009.

Things are looking better now than a couple of years ago, but “that’s not saying very much”, emphasises murley.

“The banks are gradually

starting to lend again. It’s better

than before, but still not as

good as it was.”

The financial crisis: what now for wind energy?Nearly three years after the financial crisis exploded,

shattering and battering industries worldwide, Sarah Azau

takes a look at the impact on the wind energy sector and

considers what will happen next.

photo: reporters


| financial crisis |

“The banks are gradually starting to lend again”, agrees Christian Kjaer, Chief executive of ewea. “it’s better than before, but still not as good as it was.”

one area particularly affected is offshore, where projects are generally bigger-scale, costlier and marginally high risk than on land. previously, banks would share the risk for such projects in what is known as a “syndicated loan”, but they have become wary of each other, which has af-fected the financing of bigger projects.

This is where institutional investors like the european investment Bank (eiB) have been stepping in – its lending to renewables projects quadrupled to reach some €2.2 billion between 2006 and 2008.

“Three years ago banks fought for wind power projects and bodies like us weren’t necessary to bridge the gap”, explains henrik welch from eKF, which was set up by the danish government to support danish products in international markets. “But since the crisis, we have been overwhelmed with requests. at the moment, relatively few com-mercial banks are pursuing renewables projects, but we are and so is the eiB.”

But shouldn’t the crisis at least have some kind of positive effect on the cost of debt finance for the sector? one well-known effect of the financial catastrophe was the banks’ worldwide slashing of interest rates in order to try and re-boot the economy. have the wind energy sector’s repayments become cheaper, at least?

“in theory, wind energy projects should be benefitting from the lower interest rates”, agrees young. “however, because other things have increased, the overall cost of debt has actually gone up.”

The banks have in fact increased the “risk pre-mium” attached to the loan – which means that although the interest rate has dropped, the differ-ence is more than made up for by the increased premium, and the industry is paying the same as, or more than, before to borrow money.

Time differencesimpressively, the wind power sector worldwide is flourishing despite all this. in 2009, a mas-sive 10 gw of new wind capacity was added in europe, more than for any other power source, and representing a 23% increase on 2008 installations. investment in new european wind farms in 2009 reached €13 billion, including €1.5 billion offshore.

This growth, however, came about on the basis of orders put in 18 months earlier, as Kjaer points

out. Because there was a time delay of up to two years between ordering turbines and their deliv-ery, 2010’s figures will tell more about the health of the sector in 2008-9 than will the figures for those years.

it appears that for now, things are slowly get-ting better. Capital seems to be more available, and some banks are opening up their lending a little more – there are now around ten banks in europe that are lending to wind projects, up from seven or eight a year ago, according to murley - but institutional investors are likely to still have a significant role in the near future.

indeed, because the years just prior to the crisis were of unprecedented levels of boom and readily available capital with almost no risk attached, it is in fact unlikely that the financial conditions of 2006-2007 will ever be recreated.

“everything looks a little more positive now, and some banks have come back, but they are taking on smaller pieces of transactions. Things may never again be exactly as they were before the crisis”, says welch.

monteau says the same thing: “For some months after september 2008 there was very lit-tle available money, but today we can once again invest in wind projects, even though the condi-tions are not exactly what they were.”

murley uses a distinctive image to summarise his point: “it’s like the economy had open-heart surgery”, he says. “it’s out of intensive care now, but it will need to spend a long time in rehab”.

“In theory, wind energy projects should be benefitting from the lower interest rates. However, because other things have increased, the overall cost of debt has actually gone up.”

The financial crisis: what now for wind energy? photo: Lm glasfiber


| wind bites & wind dates |

“Forty years ago oil started to flow from the North Sea. That showed Britain could lead the world and now we can do the same and lead the world with offshore wind power coast.”Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister

“Copenhagen was the last get-out-of-jail-free card and we cannot afford another failure in Cancun [Nov-Dec 2010].” UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer

“Wind will be a very important element of the total electricity production of Poland. It will provide many new jobs.”Marcin Korolec, Under Secretary of State, Ministry

of the Economy, Poland

“The price of servicing and maintenance per kW has gone down as turbines have got bigger.”Henning Kruse, Senior Export Manager, Siemens

Wind Power

“If we do not invest smartly, intelligently for the next ten years, then the total cost after is going to be even bigger. Because you lock yourself in with old technologies and then it makes it even more difficult to reach the targets that you have got to meet after 2020.”Connie Hedegaard , EU Climate Action

Commissioner

“Higher upfront investments in renewable energies do pay off in the long run; the capital investment costs will be outweighed by the avoided fossil fuel and CO

2 costs.”

Arthouros Zervos, President of EWEA and the

European Renewable Energy Council

“Apart from improving our energy security by displacing oil, improving the air quality of our cities and reduce noise pollution, the electric car is very complementary to our bet on renewable energy.” Luis Atienza, President of Red Electrica

“We will need smart grids, but also strong long-distance power transmission and new interconnectors. This will require finance. The Energy Infrastructure Package which I plan to propose later this year will address these challenges.”Günther Oettinger, EU Energy Commissioner

“As Energy Commissioner, I will push for the policies and programmes which Europe needs to make the transition to deliver its commitments by 2020. In parallel, the stage for large levels of decarbonisation by 2050 will also be set without delay.”Günther Oettinger, EU Energy Commissioner

“From 2020 we will see 40,000 MW per year built offshore…This will require ten to twelve new heavy lift vessels, other vessels for transporting foundations, towers, nacelles and blading systems. New ports will have to be built across Europe.” Eddie O’Connor, Chief Executive of Mainstram

Renewable Power

“Offshore wind power generation is going to make a major contribution to the UK’s energy needs and we’re very excited to be at the heart of it.” Joel Staadecker, CEO of SeaEnergy Renewables

“Wind power is an opportunity for Turkey, and Turkey offers a market opportunity to wind energy investors and developers. However, in order to exploit this potential, permitting procedures must be optimised and the government must put in place a legal framework that offers stability and certainty to those who want to invest for the next 15 years.”Murat Durak, Chairman of the Turkish Wind Energy

Association (TÜREB)

“By 2020 wind could provide 10-12% of the global electricity supply.”Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of the Global

Wind Energy Council

Wind bites

Events

GRIDS 201023-24 november 2010Berlin, germanywww.ewea.org/grids2010e-mail: [email protected]: + 32 2 400 10 84

EWEA 2011 annual event14-17 march 2011Brussels, Belgiumwww.ewea.org/annual2011e-mail: [email protected]: + 32 2 400 10 84

OFFSHORE 2011 29 november – 1 december 2011amsterdam, The netherlandswww.ewea.org/offshore2011e-mail: [email protected]: + 32 2 400 10 84


| ewea news |

Upcoming eWea events in bucharest and budapest

another two workshops linked to the eu-funded wind Barriers project, co-ordinated by ewea, on the grid and administrative obstacles to wind energy development in europe are coming up in Bucharest, romania on 6 July and in Budapest, hungary on 8 July. entitled ‘meeting the climate and energy chal-lenges’, they are organised by ewea and supported by intelligent energy europe.

The workshops will focus on issues including 2020 roadmaps, barriers to wind development, barriers connecting to the national grids and the opportunities offered by the eu 20% directive.

attendance is free of charge. interpretation provided.Full information and registration: www.ewea.org/events

registration opens for gridS 2010 event

you can now register to attend the grids 2010 conference taking place from 23-24 november in Berlin on www.ewea.org/grids2010.

Top political and industry speakers ex-plore the financial, technical, policy and regulatory issues that will shape the de-velopment of a grid that meets europe’s energy, consumer and climate needs.

The full conference pro-gramme will be up on the website www.ewea.org/grids2010 by the end of June 2010. please note that there will not be a call for abstracts.

eWea has moved offices

on 11 June, ewea moved to bigger office premises – just down the road! our new address is:wind power houserue d’arlon 801040 Brussels - Belgiumnew telephone number: +32 2 213 18 11

Help shape the eWea 2011 annual event

The call for abstracts for ewea 2011 – formerly known as eweC - to be held in Brussels from 14-17 march, is now open. if you wish to help contribute to europe’s biggest wind energy event next year by submitting an abstract, go to www.ewea.org/events.

ewea 2011 will unite decision-makers, industry representatives and business people for four days

of information-packed sessions and networking opportunities in the heart of europe.

The parallel exhibition will be spread over 10,300m2 of space. To book a stand, contact sanna heinonen at [email protected]. Registration for EWEA 2011 is due to open

shortly – keep an eye on www.ewea.org/events for

more information.

around the world, thousands of people joined in with wind energy related activi-ties - from contests and parties to plays and seminars - around the global wind day on 15 June.

Brussels dwellers will have been unable to avoid spotting a 29-metre long full size wind turbine blade on the schuman roundabout in the eu quarter. on 14 June, a reception was held in

The blade on Brussels’ Schuman roundabout

phot

o: e

wea

globally spreading the message of wind’s power

Brussels in the schuman area. hundreds of people enjoyed live entertainment and refreshments at the foot of the blade. More information: www.globalwindday.org.

a breath of fresh air

ewea’s new campaign and blog, launched at eweC in warsaw, have got off to a flying start as over 1,000 wind turbines have already been “adopted”. The ‘adopt a wind turbine’ tool, avail-able on www.ewea.org/freshair is a means for people to support the cam-paign and show their desire to “give europe a breath of fresh air” – the cam-paign title. once they have chosen a turbine to adopt, their friends can vote for the turbine, giving them a chance to win a trip to Copenhagen and to visit a wind farm.

“The reason wind energy is a ‘breath of fresh air’ is that it offers so

many benefits”, explains elke zander, ewea Campaigns officer. “it can power europe seven times over, european wind companies are world leaders and job creators, and wind energy reduces europe’s dependence on imported fos-sil fuels, lowers electricity prices and emits no Co

2”.More information: www.ewea.org/freshair

EWEA President Arthouros Zervos adopts a

turbine


| focus |

“ge looking for swedish wind power suppliers,” proclaims one recent

headline on a story about the american conglomerate saying it would invest €50 million in swedish wind power as part of a €340 million expansion plan.

“China Longyuan to spend $13 billion on wind power,” screams another story about the company wanting to become the world’s biggest wind power producer by installing a minimum of 16,000 mw in China and abroad in five years.

“Kenya electricity Co. plans to de-velop wind power at nine sites,” notes a

headline about the east african nation’s biggest electricity producer seeking to conduct a feasibility study for wind power projects north of nairobi.

“Brazil is leading Latin america’s wind energy market,” tell of a study sug-gesting Brazil is expected to represent 69% of the total installed capacity in 2025 in Latin america.

Taken together, this relentless siren across cyberspace is one way of illustrat-ing how the wind power industry has, within the last 30 years, become such a successful mainstream energy source.

not only is wind power, which used to be mostly a european story, at the top of the renewables list for generating increasing amounts of electricity for a growing global population, policy makers are also seeing it as the fast, go-to solution for climate change mitigation, job creation and energy independence. Call it the globalisation of wind power.

as the first decade of the century draws to a close, wind power has be-come a white hot phenomenon around the world.

Going global, the rapidly expanding wind power industry enters a new eraSpending an hour on the internet looking for stories about global wind power results in a torrent

of headlines announcing, in effect, that the world’s overstressed energy markets are beginning to

experience a shift away from polluting fossil fuels to emissions-free electricity created by harnessing

never-ending breezes.

By Chris Rose

photos: Keenpress publishing sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson


| focus |

indeed, more nations now want to harness the free power source, more companies want to export their technolo-gies, more economists now lobby for the sector as key to a new green economy, and more environmentalists are hop-ing it can help replace coal and oil than ever before.

a recent report from the global wind energy Council (gweC) found that the global wind market grew by 41% in 2009. The 38 gw of new wind power capacity installed last year brings the total capac-ity up to 158.5 gw.

gweC reported the largest wind market in the world last year was China, which added almost 14 gw of capacity, more than doubling its capacity from 12 gw in 2008 to nearly 26 gw.

in addition to asia, gweC noted the other main markets driving global wind power growth are north america and europe, both of which installed over 10 gw of capacity in 2009.

The 2009 market for turbine installa-tions was worth about €45 billion.

despite the financial crisis, gweC secretary general steve sawyer said

that wind energy continues to be the most popular power technology in many parts of the world.

“The main drivers for installing wind energy are still there: energy security, cli-mate change, speed of deployment, and the will to hedge against volatile fossil fuel prices,” sawyer said, adding that the sector now employs more than 500,000 people, a number that could increase to over two million by 2020.

he said many governments have un-derstood the benefits of wind, and priori-tised it in their economic recovery plans.

| focus |

sawyer warned that bottlenecks remain, including complicated administrative pro-cedures, inadequate grid infrastructure and lack of grid access, as well as public opposition and legal challenges in some markets.

despite this, he points to gweC’s 2008 advanced scenario for wind power development that predicts global in-stalled capacity at 2,300 gw by 2030.

“we are expecting to see continuous strong growth in asia (both China and india), the us and europe,” sawyer said.

“in addition, some other regions such as Latin america and develop-ing asia (mainly Thailand, Vietnam, pakistan and The philippines) will also by 2030 have some substantial wind power developments, while africa and the middle east are still expected to lag somewhat behind.”

stefan Karlsson from sKF, the swedish multinational that is a leading supplier of bearings and other compo-nents to the wind industry, also believes the sector has a rosy future.

“wind energy is the most cost ef-ficient way of producing renewable and emissions-free electricity and i see the acceptance level for wind gradually increasing all over the world,” Karlsson said. “my perception is that wind energy is still at an early stage of a long-term development.”

he believes “this internationalisa-tion of the wind turbine industry” is just beginning.

“Ten years ago none of the traditional manufacturers of energy generating equipment were active in the wind energy market.

“since then we have seen major investments from companies like ge,

siemens, alstom, dong Fang, mitshubishi etc., and more recently the emerging focus by samsung just to mention a few. The industry is in a constant develop-ment where mergers and acquisitions form part of the change.”

as more companies enter the glo-bal wind farm market, Karlsson says european manufacturers are likely to face increased competition, especially from asia.

“we see massive focus from markets like China, but also south Korea, to cap-ture an increasing part of the global wind turbine market,” he added.

as Chief operating officer for ewea, Bruce douglas takes a keen interest in how wind power is developing around the world.

while he was expecting some growth in the global sector last year, douglas was “pleasantly surprised” that it reached 41%, especially considering the ongoing financial crisis.

“although the traditional markets of the us and europe held up well, it was the 100% growth in China that really led the way,” douglas said, adding that an annual growth rate of 41%, in any industry, is simply not sustainable over the long run.

douglas also said that companies associated with the eu wind power sec-tor should not be concerned about rapid growth in the industry elsewhere. “The eu market will show steady growth for the foreseeable future,” he said, adding that the trading bloc’s legislation requir-ing 34% renewable electricity by 2020 provides long term investor certainty in the european wind energy sector.

achieving that target, and reduc-ing greenhouse gas emissions to at

least 20% below their 1990 levels by then, means more than one-third of european power will have to come from renewables, with wind expected to deliver 12-14%.

douglas said that as the wind indus-try goes global, europe can also use its technology leadership to build turbine and related component plants on other continents.

“many european companies have already located factories in the us, india, China.” and, he said, the eu sector will continue to benefit from delivering high quality products and services if governments, institutions and com-panies increase their investment in european r&d.

some of the companies are also lob-bying various countries on other conti-nents to become more wind friendly.

“Certainly many companies see the opportunity and go in early and lobby. a good example is Vestas who are active in over 60 countries. other examples include gamesa in China, iberdrola in the us, and enercon in Brazil.”

douglas said that, despite last year’s record growth, the ongoing financial crisis may still have an adverse effect on installation figures. since there is a delay between ordering turbines, receiving them and a wind farm becoming opera-tional, the impact will be felt more this year and in 2011. he added, however, that he expects global annual installed capacity to still show a small growth this year and then continue to grow strongly again after that.


In 2009, China added more wind

energy capacity than any

other country.


| focus |

he also said that, in addition to the eu renewables legislation, wind power in europe is getting a boost from concerns about climate change, job creation and energy security.

Comparing wind power now to the oil industry a century ago, he said the media has begun to recognise what a valuable role the young power-generating sector can play on the world stage.

“it’s great news to see the coverage we are getting about the wind industry - there is a real sense at every level that wind energy has become a mainstream power player,” douglas said.

as asia, and especially China, is fast becoming the new frontier of global wind power growth, it is inevitable that european turbine and component manufactures will notice a shift to domestic suppliers.

indeed, according to a recent Bloomberg new energy Finance story, the combined market share in China for ge, Vestas and siemens fell to 14% last year from 71% in 2005. sales, the story added, are being eroded by local compa-nies including sinovel and goldwind.

“it’s a tough market,” Bloomberg quoted Jesus zaldua, president of gamesa Corp. Tecnologica sa’s Chinese subsidiary as saying. “some companies

will have to leave China in the next five years.”

Calling China “the world’s fastest-growing green energy market,” the story reported that western wind farm companies are striking back by building bigger turbines than Chinese companies, and that europe still has a reputation for manufacturing more reliable equipment.

using statistics compiled by danish firm maKe Consulting, the story added Vestas and ge were first and second in supplying turbines worldwide in 2009, while sinovel was third, followed by germany’s enercon, and goldwind.

it also quoted Tao gang, a vice presi-dent at sinovel, saying the company is in discussion about opening factories overseas. “we are open to all business models,” he said.

shi pengfei, a senior consultant for wind power at hydroChina Co.’s hydropower planning general institute, said climate change is the major driving force of wind power development in asia but the percentage of wind-gener-ated electricity is still very small and cost is high.

in an interview, shi said that the Chinese government is planning on “15% of non-fossil energy in the primary energy consumption by 2020,” among hydropower,

nuclear power and other renewables. By that time, he said, there is expected to be 150 gw of installed wind power capacity.

asked how wind power can aid the Chinese economy and the environment while increasing energy independence, shi noted that even though the wind sec-tor in China may have the most installed capacity in the world by 2020, it will only be of limited help to the national econo-my. abundant coal, he said, can provide up to 80% of the nation’s electricity and it is much cheaper than wind.

“even if wind power capacity in 2020 reaches 150 gw, the electricity gener-ated by wind maybe only 4% in power sector,” he said, adding that China is experiencing rapid industrialisation and, with a population of 1.5 billion people, total energy demand is tremendous.

China will generate about 10% of its electricity from wind power by 2050, he said, and as much as 600 gw of installed wind power capacity will be needed to reach that goal.

however, shi said China can provide cheaper wind turbines, components and wind farm development consultancy serv-ices, than companies from europe and north america.

he said that while China has already established a domestic wind power

Many European companies

have already set up factories in

countries like India


| focus |

supply chain for major components, some of the key parts, such as control-lers, converters and main shaft bearings, still needed to be imported.

shi added that european companies have advanced technology and high-quali-ty products while being more experienced on new technology development and wind turbine operations.

“most of the Chinese-made wind turbines are developed by means of tech-nology transfer from europe, including licensing, joint design and acquisitions of engineering consulting firms; also some of the key components are supplied from europe.

“on the other hand, european compa-nies are setting up their manufacturing facilities in China, to find qualified domes-tic suppliers in order to reduce the cost of products, not only for Chinese market but also the international market.”

asked if Chinese wind companies are now trying to go global, he said that in 2009 some Chinese-made wind turbines were already being exported to the us and india.

“major Chinese companies have the capability in large-scale production, as the domestic market is limited to 20 gw annually. Constrained by power grid transmission and local load consump-tion, they must go global.”

mingliang Liu, who researches policy issues for the Chinese wind energy association, said national government departments are keenly aware that wind power is currently the most mature renewables technology, and can help address energy security and climate change concerns.

Liu said China embraces the idea of a new green economy based on wind power and other renewables.

“wind power, photovoltaic, biomass, etc. are becoming China’s main sources of renewable energy”, Liu said.

“The Chinese government promul-gated laws and incentives policies to promote renewable energy development. renewable energy-related r & d has also received funding. China is also attract-ing foreign investment or through private capital to develop renewable energy.”

he said the competitive pressures of China’s domestic wind energy mar-ket is prompting a number of Chinese wind manufacturers to try and enter the global market.

“China has huge wind power re-sources,” Liu said. “Chinese wind power equipment manufacturers are constantly growing... it can be expected that China’s developers and equipment manufacturers are playing increas-ingly important roles in the global wind power industry.”

many asian nations have turned to wind power because they need more energy resources as they continue to develop, says shigeo ishihara, from the international affairs division of the Japanese wind power association.

in addition, he said, wind energy can play an important role in generating emissions-free electricity which is neces-sary because of global warming.

ishihara said the sector can help the Japanese economy – the second largest in the world – by creating jobs in manu-facturing wind turbines, related compo-nents and operations and maintenance.

indeed, it is important to remember that wind energy factories and company branches based in europe, whether european, asian, american or anything else, will still create jobs for europeans.

it should come as no surprise that not everyone involved in the widening wind power industry speaks of globali-sation in glowing terms.

one of the dissenting voices be-longs to paul gipe who began study-ing, researching and writing about wind energy 32 years ago after getting involved in environmental activism against the coal industry.

gipe says that instead of a small number of wind energy companies dominating the market he would much prefer to see the sector expanded so that the existing monopoly players would have to be forced to become more competitive and inclusive.

he added, however, that it was important for the offshore wind sector that the us government just approved of the controversial Cape wind project off massachusetts.

“it’s significant, absolutely, be-cause it was done over the objections of very powerful elites, over aesthetic concerns,” gipe said, adding that

Cape wind, the first offshore develop-ment in the us, would become a cata-lyst for more offshore developments. “it’s particularly good because it’s a defeat for the nimBys.”

For wind power to continue to be a success, he said the proper amount of attention must be paid during the planning process for a wind farm to making it both aesthetically pleas-ing to the public and environmentally acceptable.

he said he thought it would be good for the wind energy industry if a new international agreement could be reached to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, but that the sector, which in terms of environmental impact is impeccably better than nuclear, coal and gas, can be developed further on its own merits.

“The future looks good for wind but the wind industry must be more inclusive and encourage community development.”

although successful, the wind power industry must be more inclusive


| focus |

Despite the recession, global wind power grew at an amazing pace last year

By Chris Rose

although the world continued to be buffeted by an economic meltdown

last year and the resulting financial uncertainty dominated the global news agenda, wind power confounded energy experts by experiencing a stellar year far beyond expectations.

That’s the glowing assessment by the global wind energy Council (gweC) which reported in march that the global wind power market grew by an astonish-ing 41% in 2009.

That staggering expansion, gweC noted, demonstrated that wind energy – now present in more than 70 countries – is increasingly the power technology of choice. gweC also noted that China, the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, enjoyed an emissions-free wind power growth rate of more than 100%.

“The continued growth and expansion of the wind power industry in the face of a global recession and a financial crisis is a testament to the inherent attractive-ness of the technology,” according to the global wind 2009 report.

“wind power is clean, reliable, and quick to install; it’s the leading electricity generation technology in the fight against climate change, enhancing energy secu-rity, stabilising electricity prices, cleaning up our air and creating thousands of qual-ity jobs in the manufacturing sector when they’re particularly hard to come by.”

in a section headlined “global wind power boom continues despite economic woes,” gweC report noted more than 38 gw of new wind power capacity was installed around the world last year, bringing the total installed capacity up to 158.5 gw.

about 500,000 people are now employed in the global wind power sec-tor, the report said, adding asia, north america and europe each installed more than 10 gw of new capacity in 2009.

“For the first time, asia was the world’s largest regional market for wind energy, with capacity additions amount-ing to 15.4 gw,” the report said. “China was the world’s largest market in 2009, more than doubling its capacity from 12.1 gw in 2008 to 25.8 gw, adding a staggering 13.8 gw of capacity, and slipped past

germany [with almost 26 gw] to become the world’s second largest wind power market by a very narrow margin.”

The report said the us wind energy market, led by Texas, maintained its global leadership in installed capacity, increasing the country’s installed capac-ity by 39% and bringing the total installed grid-connected capacity to 35 gw. spain was in the number four spot, with more than 19 gw, while india placed fifth with almost 11 gw.

as a region, europe, which has tradition-ally been the world’s largest market for wind energy development, continued to see strong growth. The report noted that, once again, more wind power was installed in the eu than any other power technology, accounting for 39% of the total new generation capacity. By the end of 2009, europe’s wind power capacity totalled up to 76.2 gw.

“investment in new european wind farms in 2009 reached €13 billion, including €1.5 billion offshore,” the report said. “The wind capacity installed by the end of 2009 will in a normal year produce 163 Twh of electricity, meeting 4.8% of total eu power demand.”

gweC added that wind energy is now an important player in the world’s energy markets, with the 2009 market for turbine installations was worth about €45 bn.

Looking five years out, the report pre-dicted that in 2014 global wind capacity will stand at 409 gw. “during 2014, 62.5 gw of new capacity will be added to the global total, compared to 38.3 gw in 2009. The annual growth rates during this period will average 20.9% in terms of total installed capacity, and 10.3% for annual market growth.”

The full report can be seen at www.gwec.net.

global annual installed wind capacity (1996-2009)

mw

40,00035,00030,00025,00020,00015,00015,00010,000

5,0000

1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

1,280 1,530 2,520 3,440 3,7606,500 7,270 8,133 8,207

11,53115,244

19,865

26,282

37,466


| focus |

To those who helped get wind power off the ground in the united states,

it seems as though the industry has come full circle.

in 2008, the us became the nation with the largest amount of installed wind capacity. For years, europe led the way, with germany the long-time top country in installations and denmark turning heads with its stellar 20% pen-etration – a rate the us wind industry would be thrilled to achieve, even in many years’ time. in fact, the year the us took the lead in capacity, the us department of energy released a study showing the feasibility of 20% wind penetration by 2030.

But europe wasn’t always wind power’s hub. The modern industry got off the ground in the us, with the first utility-scale projects going online in California late in 1981. For a time, excitement surrounded the industry here, with engineers working to improve

A second wind for the US

on their first-generation large turbines and government policy supporting their efforts all the way. so when the us be-came the leader in wind energy capacity in 2008, veterans of the industry had a sense of déjà vu.

america’s 1980s boom didn’t last long. shortly after utility-scale wind power began, policy support disappeared, and the industry went dormant. meanwhile, european governments chose to embrace wind power, establishing a solid base of policies that would allow the industry to flourish. manufacturing facilities sprouted, creating jobs, and companies worked feverishly to build on existing technology. The wind industry was allowed to mature.

Back in the us, policymakers in the 1990s again decided to dip their toes in the water, implementing a short-term policy called the production tax credit (pTC). it was wildly successful, and the sector experienced a rebirth. The pTC was given only one- and two-year extensions,

and was even allowed to expire for brief periods, but it nevertheless propelled forward an industry that now has installed a total of over 35,000 mw.

underscoring the importance of policy is the global wind energy Council’s recent report, showing that China, which has aggressive renewable en-ergy targets, overtook the us for new wind installations in 2009: an impres-sive 13,000 mw. The us installed 10,000 mw – a record of its own. China has set a target of 100,000 mw by 2020, and a total of 37 countries have established renewables targets.

These figures are an indication of how the industry has matured into a global presence that will continue to be an ever-growing economic force – and one that tackles climate change. it is an exciting time for wind power everywhere.

while much policy work is needed in the us and the state of the economy has impacted the industry in the near term, the long-term outlook remains strong. wind works for america and robust growth is expected, and we will need the strength of international companies to help meet the demand. most of the biggest names in european wind energy have arrived on us shores and are set-ting up shop if they haven’t already. The us wind industry welcomes this trend. But if we are to ensure those other coun-tries are making the investments to build manufacturing in this country, american labour and materials are required. we must pass policies showing the us is committed for the long term. The thing we can least afford at this juncture is to have the football once again pulled away just as we are about to kick it.

The country with the largest amount of installed wind energy

capacity worldwide is the United States. States like California

and Texas led the way, and new wind farms are now popping

up all over the North American map. Denise Bode, CEO of the

American Wind Energy Association, shares her thoughts.

photo: Keenpress publishing sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson

The modern wind energy industry

got off the ground in the US

EWEA events: the winning formula

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EWEA events: the winning formula

full page.indd 1 26/05/10 09:35


a couple of years ago i met the Ceo of a major european renewable energy company, just

before he was about to travel to China. he went to do some negotiation on projects and – if i recall his off-the-record quote correctly – “to check if there are interesting activities for us to take over”.

some months later i met him again and asked him about his Chinese experiences. he said that he was quite impressed, even dazzled by the rapid progress in China. he had soon skipped his idea of business opportunities by take-overs. “instead of us taking over companies in China, Chinese companies will probably take us over!” he gasped.

This anecdote came to my mind when i recent-ly read an article on the website of uK newspaper the Guardian (http://bit.ly/wdChina) about the exploding Chinese wind energy market. as the article demonstrates, wind and other renewables are booming in China. hence, Chinese companies have reached top positions in global business in practically all renewable technologies. it brought some Chinese pV manufacturers in the Forbes top 100 of the richest people in the world. For what it’s worth.

The modern turbine industry started in the us. For decades, the Californian wind farm of altamont pass was the icon for wind energy in the world. But the us home market vanished, and consequently, us manufacturing did not conquer the world. it made head room for europe to over-take the global turbine market.

Globalisation starts at home

By Rolf de VosJournalist at Ecofys International

By invitation

europe developed to be a strong player and it still is. But in the last decade the monopoly has been diluted. For instance, in only ten years China has copied and even amplified the success stories of the synergy of industry and supporting policies in countries like denmark, germany and spain. india did likewise. in countries outside europe, big manufacturing companies and project developers are now expanding to the rest of the world, establishing the globalised market of today. Chinese companies are only just starting to participate.

in my view, China is the perfect empiric proof of the market theory that says the development of a national industry is stimulated by its home market, and vice versa.

The Guardian article confirms that, talking of the gigawatts of wind turbine capacity consist-ently being built in China. one specific project is even called The Three gorges of Land, making it the wind energy equivalent of the gigantic hydro installations of the Three gorges dam.

But the article also makes clear that large financial risks are at stake. and that the Chinese grid does not grow along with the wind capacity. These are serious concerns, and also lessons to be learned by other countries. But i cannot believe that the Chinese wind turbine industry is a bubble that will shortly burst.

The Chinese home market is founded on some solemn pillars. renewable ambitions are high and some adequate policies have been installed during the last years. The structure of Chinese hierarchy also helps. new capacity can be built in record speed because local opposition and long procedures are non-existent. europeans may not be fond of Chinese political structures, but these features do help speed things up.

The development of global wind energy will definitely not stall in China and india. other con-tinents and regions are yet to be explored, such as australia, Latin america, other asian countries (malaysia, Korea, Vietnam), the middle east and africa. new players will develop their business, establishing the globalisation of tomorrow.

But in all of these cases, the development starts with the establishment of a home mar-ket, like many countries have shown before. globalisation starts at home.

“Chinese companies

have reached top positions in global business

in practically all renewable technologies.”

| guest columnist |

photo: Keenpress publishing/sisse Brimberg & Cotton Coulson

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EWEA is the voice of the wind industry, actively promoting the use of wind power in Europe and world-wide. It has over 650 members from more than 60 countries, including companies, research institutions

and associations, making it the world’s largest and most powerful wind energy network. EWEA helps to create a better business environment for the entire wind industry.

For further information about EWEA activities, please visit www.ewea.org

Benefit from the activities of the most powerful wind energy network

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What is the most important message you wanted to communicate to people attending the annual EWEC meeting in Poland?i would like to stress that we think that the european regulatory framework is a positive and

significant tool (is favour-able and stable). now eu countries will integrate their 2020 targets and interim biannual objectives into national renewable energy action plans (nreaps).

also i’d like to say that in a good and growing number of markets, adequate inte-gration of wind is already a must and regulation and

infrastructures will be necessary to reach objec-tives. it is the time to seriously think about wind

as a major player in electricity and also be up to it, assuming our responsibility and demanding adequate action from regulators and Tsos.

Considering that Spain is one of the leaders in European wind power, what do you think the European Union/European Commission and other nations in the trading bloc can do further advance the growth of wind power in the EU?we need effective action to construct a single electric market in the union. From a physical point of view, we must boost interconnection plans to accommodate more renewables. we should also ensure good regulatory schemes are in place, not just at eu level in the long term, but also at national level in the shorter and medium term. and we must not forget grid integration regulation either. Last, but not least, we need to continue with support to r&d in all technologies so they become cost efficient. especially wind turbines and offshore.

What are your thoughts on EU offshore wind power since most people in the energy business agree there is huge potential for the sector?we are very positive about offshore. iberdrola is following the signals in the markets with favour-able opportunities, in terms of regulation, targets, natural conditions and a good resource, like in the uK. support at eu level is needed to build the offshore transmission network.

Has wind power, onshore and offshore, been set back by the recent global recession? If so, what can be done to ease the economic burden on European wind power?yes, like all businesses, wind is in the market place. wind has suffered lack of finance and expensive finance, together with weak electricity demand and strong competition from falling fuel and emissions prices. But expectations for the near term are improving. The renewables sector is showing a fast recovery.

Renewing Europe’s electricity

“It is the time to seriously think about wind as a major player in electricity and also

be up to it, assuming our responsibility and demanding

adequate action from regulators and TSOs.”

| interview |

Photos: Iberdrola Renewables

In the run-up to the European Wind Energy Conference (EWEC 2010) in Warsaw

in April, EWEA’s Chris Rose asked Iberdrola Renewables CEO Xabier Viteri some

questions about wind power in Europe today.


In December in Copenhagen, the world failed to come together to agree on a legally-binding treaty to replace the existing Kyoto Protocol on green-house gas emissions caused by burning fossil fuels. How big a set-back was this and what role do you see wind power playing in future talks to secure a post Kyoto pact?it is important to reach an international agree-ment. But individual action is most significant, with the eu countries leading the way, given re-cent legislation. also usa, China, india are work-ing on it. Copenhagen was a good opportunity, but we still have our own will and, obviously, the Cop 16 meeting at Cancun at the end of the year.

In order to jump start the ongoing climate change talks prior to the annual UN meeting in Mexico later this year, do you think Europe should uni-laterally increase its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction targets of 20% less than 1990 levels to 30%?in my opinion, this question should be addressed to european politicians, shouldn’t it? iberdrola renewables, as a pri-vate investor, follows the signals from legislation and regulation, and we’ll make the most out of market opportunities.

How important is it that the so-called new green economy begins quickly substituting the use of coal, oil and natural gas for emissions-free wind power and other renewables?green economy? i think it is a very broad con-cept. i would rather speak about green energy. wind energy in particular. we have important and

ambitious targets in europe, in all 27 member states, it is crucial to reach these objectives. wind is ready to deliver, to fight climate change, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also, to grow a large base of new employment, to reduce fuel price uncertainty and to expand an industry well beyond the eu borders.

How optimistic are you that Heads of States and national leaders can quickly reach a compromise to start reducing greenhouse gas emissions so that the atmosphere that we all share does not get hotter than a somewhat manageable two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels?another question for the politicians. i must insist that as a private company we follow policy, regula-tory and market signals. we will push in this di-rection all we can, but it is the public authorities’

role to engage in such policy measures.

Are you at all concerned that Europe’s position as global leader in wind power might soon be diminished somewhat with the rise of the sector in Asia and the United States? What should Europe do to

make sure it is always at the forefront of the wind power industry?Let’s not be scared; we are global companies. and eu companies, such as iberdrola renewables and most manufacturers, are in the forefront of this business. we need to be more efficient and competitive, delivering ever better and more sophisticated services and goods to maintain the leadership and not to shrink, but to continue expanding globally. Competition is good for all.

“Wind is ready to deliver, to fight climate change, reduce

greenhouse gas emissions and also, to grow a large base of new employment, to reduce fuel price

uncertainty and to expand an industry well beyond EU borders.”

“EU companies are at the forefront of this business. We need to be more efficient and competitive, delivering ever better and more sophisticated services and goods to maintain our leadership.”

| interview |

Wind farm at Meda, Spain

photo: iberdrola

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“really what i do just comes down to being a kid, having a curious, inquisitive mind.

i was a scout, so i was already interested in the world, then i did the american Field service ex-change programme after school and spent a year in the us – it really opened my mind.

“when i came back, i got really into wind-surfing. it became my big passion. i studied to become an interpreter-translator. i went to hawaii for a year to windsurf – when i came back, i did some competitions, and became a world cup racer for Belgium.

“i had to do military service – it was still com-pulsory then – but i was stationed at the coast so i could still windsurf, then i went to australia and new zealand. The wind was already my partner.

“But i needed to get serious. i needed a prop-er job. so for 13 years i was a flight attendant for sabena [the former Belgian national airline, ed.],

and during this time i got into paragliding, moun-taineering, mountain-climbing...

“i’ve also skied since i was 16, so i said, i like snow – where is there more snow? and i tend to see big, so i thought of the north and south poles! i started with smaller expeditions – i had no experience, so i learned on the job.

“i went to spitzbergen, iceland, Canada and so on, i took notes, i got to know the environment, and what the ice, snow and wind can tell you.

“my first big expedition was crossing greenland in 1995 – i became totally lost to the cause then, and nearly every year since i’ve been on a major expedition.

“when we used kites for the first time on an expedition it was not very well known as a means of transport. we worked on the parachutes our-selves to improve their efficiency – we sewed the sails ourselves to start with.

| first person |

Ice, wind and polar bearsDixie Dansercoer is a renowned Belgian polar explorer and

a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. His next expedition

to East Antarctica will harness the power of the wind to

travel 6,000 km pulled by kites in what would be a new

world record for non-motorised, unsupported travel.

“Once, I woke up in the night

and a polar bear was just two or three metres away

from us and we had to shoot it

in the paw.”

Photos: AAMexpedition


“our longest trip ever took place in 2007 when we crossed the arctic ocean in 106 days. The arctic ocean is difficult to use kites on as it is rough ice and in places open water. whereas antarctica is a kiter’s heaven!

“how do i choose where to go next? i sit down with maps, i read history books, i check where more exploration is needed. For example, next year we are going to east antarctica, where we’ve never been before and which has been explored very little because the logistics of getting there are so difficult. once we’re there, we will follow the wind – which goes in a circular, anti-clockwise direction – for 6,000km, aiming for a new world record in autonomous travel.

“sometimes on the expeditions we do scien-tific work. scientists often like making models on computers, and don’t so much like the cold. so they send guys like me to gather the information for them.

“we often have some difficult moments on these expeditions, but i wouldn’t say there’s much more danger than in a normal city, with the traffic, pollution and so on. But in the arctic we do quite often meet polar bears – it’s probably happened about ten times. you have to remem-ber they are predators who are always hunting. walruses can also be aggressive – they can chase you.

| first person |

“once, i woke up in the night and a polar bear was just two or three metres away from us and we had to shoot it in the paw. But that is the only time – regulations say you are allowed to kill a predator if it’s within 30 metres of you but we try and avoid that. normally, you first shoot in the air, then near the bear, to get it to leave, and hurting it is the last resort. if we do kill one, we would have to report it to the inuit Community and pay them some compensation.

“The other big danger in the arctic is split-ting ice. it can be just one or two metres thick there, and again, in the night once i was woken by a small sound my subconscious had obviously registered as dangerous – the ice had split one metre from our tent.

“physically, i never stop preparing for the next expedition. it’s a full time job because it’s such a harsh environment. i run marathons and ultra-thons. you need to have a real perseverance and a healthy body that can withstand the cold. But i prefer the cold – in the heat i get very lazy and inactive. also, about six months to a year before we leave, i build up muscle mass, which is a great store of calories. you can then burn it up to keep warm, it’s like food.

“you have to know what to eat, and when. on a trip, fats are very important as they are lots of calories in minimum weight. you also need

“Once we’re in Antarctica, we will follow the wind – which goes in a circular, anti-clockwise direction – for 6,000km, aiming for a new world record in autonomous travel.”

Dansercoer never stops

training for his expeditions


| first person |

For more on

Dansercoer’s next expedition:

www.aamexpedition.org

For more on

(ANT)arctic matters:

www.antarcticmatters.org

“In the 15 years I’ve been going to the Arctic I’ve seen a real difference due to climate change. The ice used to be about four metres thick, but that’s now dropped to 1-2 metres.”

maximum hydration. we eat a mixture of healthy fats mixed with seeds, nuts, cane sugars, honey, potato flakes, and a small amount of fish or lean meats. it needs to be easy to prepare and above all the same every day, so it doesn’t disturb your focus. if you expect better food than yesterday, and it turns out to be the same bad soup, you tend to dive a bit. if you know you’ll be eating the same old thing for 100 days it’s good! you need to fuel a machine.

“mentally the challenge is to remain focused. over 100 days it can be difficult; we’re all human beings with emotions. you have to do a very indi-vidual analysis of your weaknesses so you know when the difficult moments will come. yoga and meditation can help prepare; also taking a supply of literature and music with you on the trip, hav-ing regular contact with home. you need all the psychological boosts possible.

“in the 15 years i’ve been going to the arctic i’ve seen a real difference due to climate change. There is much less multi-layer ice – that’s the ice that lasts the summer and builds up gradually. it used to be about four metres thick, but that’s now dropped to 1-2 metres, and the expanses of ice have shrunk. The antarctic is a different story because the ice is 4,000 metres thick to start with!

“we wanted to communicate with people about climate change. my wife Julie and i give speeches and talk at conferences, but we wanted some-thing even broader. so we’ve set up an exhibi-tion called ‘(anT)arctic matters’ with different audio-visual artists who can each communicate on the dangers of climate change in their own way. The exhibition will be showing in prague from september 2010.”

Dansercoer uses a sail to capture

the wind and power his skis

Sunset in the Arctic

Make a note in your diary now: HUSUM WindEnergy 2010, 21 – 25 September

A co-operation between

From 21 to 25 September 2010 Husum will once again be the centre of the wind energy world. 800 exhibitors and 31,000 wind energy experts from 70 nations is impressive proof of the importance of HUSUM WindEnergy as the world’s leading wind energy trade fair.

Plan your visit now, and be there when the decision makers from all branches of the wind industry come together in Husum.

© to

pfot

o/ph

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ase.

com

www.husumwindenergy.com

RenewableUK 2010Annual Conference & Exhibition

Join us at RenewableUK 2010, our 32nd annual conference and exhibition. Three days of conference sessionswill examine UK industry developments in onshore and offshore wind energy, wave and tidal energy, and micro- and small-wind systems.

www.renewable-uk.com

02–� 04th

Nov 2010 | Glasgow, UK

www.renewable-uk.com

–� Over 4,000 delegates–� Over 200 exhibitors –� Networking, side events, & careers fair–� Abstracts deadline 30-Jun-2010

TM

Offshore Wind 2010Conference & Exhibition

Join us at RenewableUK’s ninth annual event dedicated to UK offshore wind energy. Two days of conference sessions will examine industry developments and the UK’s position as the world leading offshore wind market.

29 –� 30th

June 2010 | Liverpool, UK

–� Exhibition sold out–� Over 2,000 delegates–� Networking & side events

www.renewable-uk.comRegister online:

Register online:

EWEA-HalfPageV.indd 1 5/21/2010 13:49:12

NEW ENERGY NEEDED?ENERGETIC, CONTEMPORARY, CUTTING EDGE –THE MAGAZINE FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY

www.newenergy.info

is a key source of information about the international renewable energy market, providing insight not only to professional operators, planning institutions and manufacturers, but also to all friends and supporters of renewable energy sources.

R&DCOMPENSATIONTWHLITHIUM-IONSWIND ENERGY PROTOTYPEJATROPHAJACKETMIKROMORPHBOTTLENECK ONSHOREHYDROPOWER5MWAPPRENTICESHIPCOOLINGMAINTENANCECONCENTRATORBTLFERMENTERCELLULOSE MULTICRYSTALLINEOFFSHORE OPERATIONALCURRENTCHPPERFORMANCECADMIUM LIGHTNINGPROTECTIONHVDCPRESSCAKECERTIFICATESFREQUENCYCMSTRIPODCEO MECHATRONICSENGINEERCLIMATECHANGEGRIDCODE BIOFUELCONDUCTORROPE RAWMATERIALSFUNDINGGIANTSEMISSIONTRADING HYBRIDSWITCHINGUNITCO2

See further

information at

www.newenergy.info


| country focus |

nestled in one of the upper-most corners of europe, separated from

Finland to the north by the gulf of Finland, estonia is leading the Baltic countries when it comes to wind power. By the end of 2009, the country had some 142 mw of wind power capacity installed, significantly higher than near-by Latvia and Lithuania with 28 mw and 91 mw respectively. however, according to ewea’s estimations, estonia could be knocked off the Baltic wind energy top spot by 2020. our predictions show that some 600 mw will be installed in estonia by then, providing up to 11% of its power, while Lithuania looks set to race ahead to 1,100 mw by 2020.

Today, wind energy projects are being developed in estonia in the Lake peipus area - europe’s fourth largest freshwa-ter lake - and the coastal areas on the island of hiiumaa.

in estonia wind power experienced its first boom in 2007 when installed capacity doubled compared to the previ-ous year. 2008 was quieter, but in 2009 capacity almost doubled again. wind energy is playing a big role in meeting the country’s renewable energy targets. in 2005, the country had 15% renewable energy, and by 2020 this is expected to rise to 25%, just exceeding estonia’s eu renewable energy target – by 0.1%.

estonia has a number of wind energy support mechanisms. under one of the mechanisms, a Feed-in Tariff, the Transmission system operator (Tso) must buy wind energy at approximately €73 per mwh for up to 200 gwh per year. another mechanism allows wind

A closer look at Estonia...

in 2010, Wind Directions will

take a look at a selection of the

developing wind energy markets

with the most potential.

estonia – the wind energy facts

power to be sold directly into the market at around €54 per mwh premium. Currently, no mechanism exists for off-shore wind.

Looking to the future, estonia’s great-est opportunity lies offshore. The country has miles of wind-swept coastline and two large islands. of the 600 mw predic-tion for its wind power capacity by 2020, ewea’s conservative estimates state that at least 100 mw of this will be pro-duced by offshore wind power. however, there is a strong interest in boosting offshore wind power well beyond this estimate. The estonian government, for example, is currently considering developing a 1 gw project off the island of hiiumma.

while the country currently gets most of its electricity from oil shale plants, due to new environmental rules it must decommission all old oil shale power sta-tions by 2016. extensive use of oil shale in the past has caused severe damage to the environment. The level of pollut-ants in the air has been falling since the 1980s, but sulphur dioxide is still present and in some coastal areas, the seawater is polluted.

estonia is well connected to the other Baltic states as well as russia and could in fact see its entire electricity consump-tion met by imports. its electricity market is currently dominated by the public production and transmission company eesti energia as which produces more than 90% of the country’s electricity. however, the eu accession Treaty states that the estonian electricity market must be fully liberalised by the end of 2012. moreover, the eu’s Baltic energy market interconnection plan (Bemip) aims to con-nect the Baltic countries to the nordic grid in the next few years, which will enlarge the nordic energy market and allow more renewables onto the power network.

By Zoë Casey

photo: dreamstime

eU reNeWabLe eNergy target . . . . . . . . 25% in 2020, up from 15% in 2005CUrreNt iNStaLLed WiNd eNergy CaPaCity . . . . . 142 mw, potentially rising to

600 mw by 2020traditioNaL eNergy SoUrCe . . . . . . . . . oil shale mined in eastern estoniaSUPPort MeCHaNiSM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Feed-in tariff and premium

Make the right connections

14-17 March 2011, Brussels, Belgium

European Wind Energy Conference and Exhibition (EWEC)

www.ewea.org/annual2011

SUPPORTED BY: ORGANISED BY:

Year after year, EWEA annual events keep on growing. Europe’s leading wind energy conference and exhibition offers a comprehensive overview of the latest developments and vibrant networking opportunities.

Engage with over 7,000 of the industry’s key players to discover new leads and prospects, and make the right connections.

EWEA annual events are organised by the industry for the industry and represent real value for money: every euro you spend on this event is put to work promoting wind energy.

Discover new business opportunities and nurture relationships with your existing clients

Book your exhibition space now

full page EWEA2011.indd 1 26/05/10 10:42


when talking about wind turbines and their capacity – that is, their ability to generate

electricity - the word megawatt is used all the time. Capacity is measured in watts which is a very small unit, so people talk instead about kilowatts (1 kw is 1,000 watts), megawatts (1 mw is 1 mil-lion watts), and gigawatt (1 gw is 1 billion watts) when they want to describe the capacity of generat-ing units like wind turbines.

The electricity production and consumption, on the other hand, are measured in kilowatt hours (kwh). a kilowatt hour means one kilowatt (1,000 watts) of electricity produced or consumed for one hour. That means one 50-watt light bulb left on for 20 hours consumes one kilowatt-hour of electric-ity (50 watts x 20 hours = 1,000 watt-hours = 1 kilowatt-hour).

so how much electricity can a wind turbine pro-duce? That depends on the turbine’s size and the wind speed. Today’s wind turbines have a capacity between 250 watts and 7 mw. The average turbine – with a capacity of 2.5-3 mw – can produce more than 6 million kwh in a year – enough to supply 1,500 average eu households with electricity.

and how does the electricity produced by wind get to the households? it is distributed to the consumer via the grid, the physical infrastructure of the electricity network. The grid is made up of transmission and distribution networks. The transmission network (the cables and pylons in the countryside) moves electrical power with a high voltage over long distances, and sometimes across international borders. The consumers are connected to the distribution system, which has a voltage level lower than the transmission network. The link between the transmission and distribu-tion networks is a substation where the power is stepped down in voltage from the transmission to the distribution voltage level. once it reaches its final destination, the power is stepped down again to the required local level.

until recently, europe’s electricity grids were dominated by vertically integrated power compa-nies, owning both the majority of power plants and transmission lines, which made it difficult for new-comers like wind energy to access the network. But in 2009, the eu institutions adopted the ‘third liberalisation package’ aimed at opening up the power markets and making them fairer. To ensure fair competition, former national power companies

| wind energy basics |

Wind, electricity and the grid

in 2010, Wind Directions is going back to basics.

each issue this year will take a closer look at one

of the fundamentals of wind energy.

now have to split their power transmission and generation assets, although they can choose to retain some ownership over them. This is known as ‘legal unbundling’. however, to make electricity market rules even fairer for third parties, including renewables, the production and transmission activi-ties of the power companies should be completely independent in terms of ownership – known as ‘full ownership unbundling’.

another keyword is “supergrid”. much of today’s electricity grid was built 40-60 years ago around large fossil-fuel burning power stations usually sited near large urban areas, plus nuclear power stations in some countries. european grids are also largely national grids, although there are some interconnections between countries.

in order to harness the power of renewable energy and ensure a constant supply of electricity, the grid has to be extended and interconnected. For wind, that means grid expansion onshore and offshore so that it can deliver power from where the wind is blowing to where it is needed. The grid also needs to be better interconnected to improve security of of supply - and to improve competition in the electricity market, which would bring down power prices and benefit the consumers. a super-grid might also use more modern cables that lose less electricity in transit.

although it would involve considerable invest-ments, over the next 12 years, europe must build new power capacity nearly equal to half the current total. The opportunity is there to make a more modern system that meets tomorrow’s energy, social, environmental and economic needs.

By Elke Zander

photo: istockphoto


| science corner |

The most recent projection of a 100% renewable energy future was produced earlier this year by the european renewable energy Council (ereC). “re-thinking 2050” shows how a shift towards re-newable sources across all energy uses – electric-ity, heating and transport – would have multiple economic and environmental benefits. By halfway through the 21st century the european union

would see its energy related emissions of carbon dioxide reduced by more than 90%. This reduction would result in a financial benefit of €3,800 billion.

The transforma-tion needed to realise this vision would be dramatic. at present

renewable sources meet about 10% of europe’s to-tal energy requirements. By 2030, under the ereC projection, this would increase to about 40% and to almost 100% by 2050. in order for the target to be met, however, it would have to be accompanied by savings in overall energy consumption through a bundle of efficiency measures.

The ereC analysis points out that within just two decades, renewable energy has developed from an alternative source in a niche market to one of the most important energy sources worldwide and a driving force for a sustainable 21st century economy. it is already on course to meet the eu’s target for a 12% contribution by the end of 2010, an outcome that seemed uncertain several years ago.

By Crispin Aubrey

wind has obviously led the way, but other renewa-bles, especially solar pV and biomass, are making enormous strides. over 60% of all new electric-ity generation capacity installed in the eu during 2009 was renewable. at the opening session of this year’s european wind energy Conference (eweC) in warsaw, ewea announced that wind could meet 50% of europe’s power needs by 2050, with the second 50% coming from other renewables, provided the necessary changes to infrastructure and markets are made.

in “re-thinking 2050”, ereC’s projection for the 2050 electricity mix is of 31% wind, along with pV (27%), biomass (10%), geothermal (12%), hydro (9%), concentrating solar power (8%) and ocean energy (3%). This even takes into account a shift towards electricity use for transport through electrification of vehicles and trains.

These are indicative figures, the report empha-sises, but they show clearly that the power supply mix 40 years from now will be made up from a range of renewables, a number of which will, by their nature, be variable and others will provide firm baseload power. how these large quantities of variable supply can be managed in europe’s electricity grid was the subject of two important contributions to this year’s eweC event.

one was from Kurt rohrig of the Fraunhofer institute for wind energy and energy system Technology, who described the concept of a “Virtual power plant” where a range of different renewable suppliers, both baseload and variable, as well as energy storage systems, are combined together to provide 100% reliable power through sophisticated information and communication technology. Troughs and peaks are balanced out from a central control point in a similar way to the centralised system used to manage wind farms in spain.

a number of Vpp-type systems are already operating in germany, some funded through the environment ministry’s e-energy initiative. one ex-ample is the Combined power plant supported by german turbine manufacturer enercon, schmack Biogas and solar company solarworld. This links 36 scattered generation units based on wind, hy-dropower, solar pV and biogas into a combination that can meet the needs of 12,000 households.

“In just two decades, renewable energy has developed from

a niche market to one of the most important energy sources

worldwide and a driving force for a sustainable 21st century economy.”

Is 100% renewable energy feasible?Is it possible for renewable sources to meet all of Europe’s

energy supply in the foreseeable future, and how would this

result be achieved? Ten years ago this question might have

seemed unthinkable, but the urgent pressures of climate

change and uncertain fossil fuel supplies, combined with the

rapid expansion of technologies like wind power, have trans-

formed the prospects for such a vision becoming reality.


although at a scale 1/10,000th of total electricity demand in germany, the system provides a blue-print for what is possible on a larger scale.

The Vpp also has access to back-up power from pumped storage units – water stored in a high level reservoir and allowed to flow down-wards to drive a hydro turbine when required. Biogas can also be stored for use when wind or pV are less productive. a crucial element is ac-cess to continuously updated short-term weather forecasts. The Vpp can also facilitate ancillary services such as frequency and voltage control.

The Combined power plant is more than a simulation – it allows the active control of the 36 power plants in real-time operation, making adjustments instantly to cover peak loads, such as at midday, and storing surplus electricity dur-ing quiet periods. Variations in the underlying conditions, such as electricity demand or the wind availability, immediately change the interaction between the networked plants. Both anticipa-tory control and fine-tuning are possible. “The Combined power plant shows that renewable en-ergy sources can supply sufficient electricity, can be controlled at any time, function in combination and can be balanced out across the grid”, says ulrich schmack of schmack Biogas.

germany is a good model for moving towards an entirely renewable energy supply. The largest country in europe already gets 14% of its electric-ity from renewables, compared with just 4.5% in 1997, and is looking for 30% by 2020. it has also seen development from wind to solar to biomass and geothermal. as an example, green develop-ment company Juwi has projected in detail how the state of rhineland-palatinate (population four million) could increase its renewables from the present 30% of electricity supply to 100% by 2030. wind would meet 41%, geothermal, solar and biomass 18% each.

The Fraunhofer institute has also been involved in work to improve the integration of wind power into the grid. most recently this has involved using

the institute’s software to integrate five wind farms in portugal with a total capacity of 204 mw and six in spain with a capacity of 107 mw. part of the eu-wide “wind on the grid” project, the integration was achieved under a variety of weather conditions and keeping both the frequency and voltage of the electricity grid constant.

proof that such integration is possible on a larger scale comes from the final results of the european wind integration study (ewis), also presented at eweC. ewis examined how up to 185 gw of wind power could be integrated into the european grid by 2015. Bringing together 15 european Transmission system operators, this was the first time that a year-round simulation of the electricity market had been coupled with detailed modelling of the european transmission networks by the system operators. Based on an analysis of congestion points where large quanti-ties of wind electricity will need to flow across europe, the report makes recommendations for enhancing the grid in addition to those already committed to by governments. it concludes that strengthening priority cross-border interconnections will give fuel savings and Co

2 emissions benefits exceeding the reinforcement capital costs.

much work still needs to be done before very large quantities of wind power can be integrated into the pan-european grid, some of it by the wind industry itself. But combined with the findings of other initiatives, such as the Vpp network, there is evidence that progress is being made towards making ereC’s projection for 100% renewable power feasible propositions. Kurt rohrig of the Fraunhofer institute has no doubts. “in the long term,” he says, “wind farms will replace tradition-al power plants.”

For more information:

EWIS: www.wind-integration.eu

Fraunhofer Institute: www.fraunhofer.de

EREC report on 100% renewables: www.erec.org

Combined Power Plant: www.kombikraftwerk.de

photo: esTiF

Wind is leading the way,

but other renewables,

especially solar PV and

biomass, are making

enormous strides

Aggiornato al 14/05/2010

Eolica_EN_2010_210x297 14-05-2010 12:54 Pagina 1


EWEA welcomes new membersRed Blades Windtek Holdings Ltd. (China PRC)

www.redblades.com

Shipbuilders & Shiprepairers Association (UK)

The Shipbuilders & Shiprepairers Association (SSA) is

the voice of the UK Maritime Industry representing the

Shipbuilders, Shiprepairers, Equipment Manufacturers,

Service Providers, Maritime Universities, and the

wider maritime supply chain. SSA deals direct with

UK Government Departments, National and Regional

agencies and is the gateway for the UK Maritime Industry

into Europe, to deal with the European Parliament, the

European Commission and the increasing number of

specialist European agencies like the Marine Safety

Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency.

www.ssa.org.uk

SwissWinds Development GmbH (Switzerland)

www.swisswinds.com

T.E.R. Tecno Elettrica Ravasi S.R.L. (Italy)

www.terworld.com

AC Prim Sp.zo.o (Poland)

www.windandpower.com

Alnmaritec Ltd (UK)

Alnmaritec, based in the UK, is an innovative

boatbuilding company which provides original solutions

for a range of commercial workboat applications. These

include harbour workboats, pilot boats, crew/cargo

ferries, fire & rescue, RIBs, dive support, survey, line

handling and oil spill response boats. Alnmaritec has

been at the forefront of the development of offshore

wind farm support boats with three currently under

construction and having supplied around 15 boats into

the industry over recent years.

www.alnmaritec.co.uk

Association for Farmers Rights Defence AFRD

(Georgia)

www.eco-web.com/reg/02797.html

AVL List (Austria)

www.avl.com

Carter Croft Limited (UK)

Founded on a combination of extensive board-level

search experience together with strong environmental

credentials, Carter Croft Environmental Search Partners

is an executive search, assessment and onboarding

organisation focused on the renewable energy,

cleantech and environment sectors.

Our boutique model, international reach and focus

on board, senior executive and non-executive

appointments has resulted in C-level and director level

placements within the wind, solar, wave, tidal, biomass

and fuel cell industries, along with sustainability and

corporate social responsibility.

www.carter-croft.com

Development Association of Electricity Producers

(Greece)

EWT B.V. - Emergya Wind Technologies, (Netherlands)

www.ewtintenationa.com

G&G International (Belgium)

G&G International is a world leader in the engineering

and fabrication of heavy-walled reactors and large-

size columns. We have also been very successful with

various other complex steel constructions for both

onshore and offshore applications. Our state-of-the-art

facilities with direct sea access and our specialised

competency, make G&G an ideal partner for the

fabrication of the supporting foundation structures for

offshore wind farms.

www.ggi.be

Inneo Torres, S.L. (Spain)

www.inneotorres.es

Lloyd’s Register Group Services Limited (UK)

www.lr.org

Phoenix Contact GmbH & Co.KG (Germany)

www.phoenixcontact.com

Premier LTD (India)

We are one of the biggest supplier in India of windmill

generator steel components like stator Carrier, stator ring

and Disc rotor and Casting ports like motor hub, Main

Cars, Axle pin, Blade Adaptor.

www.premier.co.in

photo: fotolia.com


www.windpowerexpo.org

Join us May 22–25, 2011 in Anaheim, CA

WinDPoWER combines education, exhibition, and networking to funnel the dynamic energy of the wind market into a progressive forum for business and the future of wind.

Come experience the excitement with leaders of the wind industry and take advantage of the many growth opportunities.

WINDPOWER... capture the energy!

AWEA_WP11_halfpageAD_EWEA.indd 1 5/17/10 11:21:37 AM

Wind Directions is published by the European Wind Energy Association and read by 6,000 wind energy sector professionals, European institutions, local governments, academia and media. Wind Directions is mailed to over 60 countries including the EU 27, Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Norway, Switzerland and the US. It is also distributed at all the major wind energy events.

Upcoming issues in 2010*:

September:Focus: Globalisation and Europe’s wind industryMinifocus: The National Renewable Energy Action Plans

December:Focus: The new wind industry playersMinifocus: Offshore grids

Energy Association and read by 6,000 wind energy sector professionals, European institutions, local governments,

Raise your profi leamong key wind industry playersAdvertise in Wind Directions,the European Wind Industry magazine

Join the leading companies in wind energy and advertise in Wind Directions!

Answers for energy.

The wind is at its strongest and most constant out at sea, so offshore wind farms deliver even more clean power.

At the Øresund, off the Swedish coast, a revolution is taking place. In fact, hundreds of thousands of revolutions every day. Revolutions of wind turbine blades out at sea, away from the coast, where wind conditions are at their strongest. The Lillgrund wind farm – Sweden’s largest, operated by Vattenfall – provides clean and renewable power for 60,000 Swedish households. With 17 years of experience in offshore wind power, Siemens has the reliable technology to get the best out of offshore wind resources. www.siemens.com/energy

How do we harness the power of the wind offshore for the cities onshore?

E50

00

1-W

31

0-F

11

7-X

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Windanzeige_A4_e_K2_ex_1993.indd 1 12.06.2009 11:07:06 Uhr

We are. And we’re looking for people with fl air, vision and a clear commitment to delivery, to join our existing Offshore Team.

Mainstream Renewable Power was established in 2008 to develop, build and operate renewable energy plant in collaboration with strategic partners and we have almost 100 people working together in seven countries, spanning four continents.

We have established our Offshore Centre of Excellence in London, where our highly experienced and dynamic team is dedicated to delivering our ambitious plans for offshore wind in Europe, including the Neart na Gaoithe project in Scotland and the Horizont project in Germany. Through our investment in supporting wind technician training in the UK, Mainstream is committed to driving the offshore wind sector by training skilled personnel to work offshore.

We’re focused on delivering the bigger picture and our vision for a pan-European offshore supergrid is central to our offshore strategy.

If offshore wind is your passion and you want to be part of an exciting and entrepreneurial team, we are looking for exceptional people to fi ll positions in London, Glasgow and Berlin.

www.mainstreamrp.com

BERLIN – CAPE TOWN – CHICAGO – DUBLIN – LONDON – SANTIAGO – TORONTO

ARE YOU PASSIONATE ABOUT OFFSHORE WIND?

Offshore Project Engineer Glasgow

Offshore Health and Safety ManagerLondon

Offshore Project EngineerBerlin

Offshore DeveloperBerlin

General Manager European Offshore London

For more information on these positions, visit our Careers section at www.mainstreamrp.com

Recruit Ad A4 - Wind Directions.indd 1 12/06/2009 17:58:08

BOOK NOW

Fill in the booking form pg.58

*Subject to con� rmation

RAISE YOUR PRFILE AD.indd 1 27/05/10 16:36

Advertising booking formFax to: +32 2 546 1944 or Post to: EWEA, Rue d’Arlon, 80, B-1040 Brussels, Belgium

Yes, I would like to advertise in Wind Directions.

SIZE EWEA Member (€) Non Member (€)

Double Page Spread 5040 5544 € . . . . . . . . . . .

Full Page 2520 2904 € . . . . . . . . . . .

Half Page Horizontal 1512 1742 € . . . . . . . . . . .

Half Page Vertical 1512 1742 € . . . . . . . . . . .

Quarter page (portrait format only) 840 968 € . . . . . . . . . . . .

Inside Back Cover 2856 3291 € . . . . . . . . . . .

Inside Front Cover 3024 3485 € . . . . . . . . . . .

WD eMag URL link to your advertisement 500 700 € . . . . . . . . . . .

ISSUE Booking deadline Copy deadline Distribution

Issue 4 30 July 2010 6 August 2010 Husum WindEnergy 2010, Eolica Expo Mediterranean 2010

Issue 5 8 October 2010 15 October 2010 Renewable UK2010 Annual Conference & Exhibition, EWEA Grid Conference

MULTIPLE ISSUES EWEA Member Non Member

3 out of 5 issues per year* 5% off single advert price 5% off single advert price € . . . . . . . . . . .

5 issues* 10% off single advert price 10% off single advert price € . . . . . . . . . . .

* If purchasing after the yearly publication cycle has commenced, a multiple-issue package will roll over into the following year’s publication cycle.

CUSTOMISED ORDERS Customised advertising is possible. Please call to enquire.

Please note that a 5% premium is charged for any guaranteed position

DEADLINES: All advertisement information must be received by the Copy Deadline. After this deadline, inclusion of your advertisement in the publication cannot be guaranteed and no refund will be given.

CANCELLATIONS: Requests for advertisement cancellations must be made in writing. For cancellations made 2 months prior to the Copy Deadline (of the target issue), 50% of the advertisement rate will be reimbursed. For cancellations made after the Copy Deadline, no reimbursement will be given.

TOTAL PAyAbLE (You will be invoiced once the magazine is printed) € . . . . . . . . . . . .

CONTACT INFORMATION

Contact Person: Mr. Ms. Mrs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Job title: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Organisation: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . VAT No: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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PAyMENT

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Account name – European Wind Energy Association

Bank: ING Bank / BIC code: BBRUBEBB / IBAN code: BE73 3630 4209 0360

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TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

DIMENSIONS Trimmed Size Bleed Type Area

Double Page Spread 410 x 297 mm 430 x 307 mm 410 x 287 mm

Full Page 210 x 297 mm 220 x 307 mm 200 x 287 mm

Half Page Horizontal 210 x 148 mm 216 x 154 mm 200 x 138 mm

Half Page Vertical 105 x 297 mm 110 x 307 mm 95 x 287 mm

Quarter Page (portrait only) 105 x 148 mm 115 x 158 mm 95 x 138 mm

DIGITAL FORMAT

You can send advertising copy in digital format only. Wind Directions is an A4 size publication, printed with 4-colour process throughout. Digital copy should be pro-vided as a high-resolution PDF file. We accept CDs, memory sticks and e-mailed zip files under 5 MB. You must send the digital copy with a printed version and indicate “Wind Directions” and the Issue the advert is intended for.

For more information on advertising, please contact:Christi Newman, Sales Manager

European Wind Energy Association asbl

Rue d’Arlon, 80, B-1040 Brussels, Belgium

Tel.: +32 2 400 1056, Fax: +32 2 546 1944

E-mail: [email protected]

Advertising copy material should be sent to: Viviana Ravasi, Membership and Sales Assistant

European Wind Energy Association asbl

Rue d’Arlon, 80, B-1040 Brussels, Belgium

Tel.: +32 2 400 10 87, Fax: +32 2 546 1944

E-mail: [email protected]

W I N D D I R E C T I O N S

ADVERTISING BOOKING FORM WD.indd 1 26/05/10 11:19


Confounding all expectations, the wind indus-try had a record year in 2009. more than 38

gw was installed globally, bringing the total up to more than 158 gw, well ahead of the most optimistic scenario we published just two years ago. 41% year-on-year market growth during the deepest recession since the great depression makes it all the more impressive. Commercial wind projects now operate in more than 70 coun-tries around the world, and in many places, wind power has emerged as the generation technol-ogy of choice, leading installations in both the eu and us over the last two years. The business is truly going global.

Thanks to strong government commit-ment to developing renewable energy, the Chinese market has been the single largest driver of the growth of the industry globally for the last several years, and China was indeed the world’s largest market in 2009. starting with a paltry 764 mw in 2004, China has doubled its total installed capacity each of the past five years to reach more than 25 gw in 2009.

at the end of 2005, just one Chinese manu-facturer edged into the global top 10. now there are five in the global top 15. China’s leading manufacturers sinovel (world number three) and goldwind (world number five) are aggressively seeking to enter international markets, and both have the ambition to become truly global players; and there are several others not far behind.

But it’s not just China. india’s steady market over the past few years seems poised for another round of rapid growth. There are new signs of life in the Japanese market, and the clear signals from the south Korean government heralded the entry of three of the world’s largest companies into the wind business: hyundai, samsung and daewoo. Thailand, the philippines and Vietnam have also started to attract serious interest.

The asian juggernaut has no rivals at this point, but the african market is beginning to bloom. morocco continues its steady growth; and one of egypt’s largest companies, elsewedy electric, has developed its own direct drive turbine in a partnership with german engineering firm sweg and is pursuing the growing market on egypt’s windy red sea coast. The largest wind farm in sub-saharan africa (300 mw) is due to come on line at Lake Turkana in Kenya later this year, and there are large wind farms under construction

in both ethiopia and Tanzania. we’re still waiting for the south african market.

Last but not least, the Latin american market seems ready to take off. argentina’s impsa, one of argentina’s largest con-struction companies, built facilities in Brazil and is gaining signifi-cant market share in Latin america’s most

promising market, where the combination of ex-cellent wind resources, a rapidly growing economy, and an electricity system which is mostly hydro is now attracting interest from a large number of global players.

wind power is now a truly global phenomenon, both in terms of the scope of development and manufacturers and developers expanding their activities to more countries and continents. all that’s really missing now is the russian Federation and the former soviet republics. if they got serious about developing their tremen-dous wind resources then perhaps europe would be importing electricity rather than gas from our large eastern neighbours!

| the last word |

A blossoming worldwide market

by Steve Sawyer, Secretary-General of the Global Wind Energy Council

photo: ewea

“Commercial wind projects now operate in more than 70

countries around the world, and in many places, wind power

has emerged as the generation technology of choice, leading

installations in both the EU and US over the last two years.”

“The Asian juggernaut has no rivals at this point, but the African market is beginning to bloom.”

One wOrld. One turbine. All winds.

At Vestas, our more than 20,000 employees are dedicated to satisfying our customers’ needs.

That’s why our 2 MW platform comes in three rotor sizes, which means it is ideal for all wind conditions – low, medium and high.

Locally produced in the US, China and Europe, the 2 MW is built on tried and tested technology with proven reliability over seven generations of development.

The V80 and V90 models achieved availability of over 95% in 2009.

We’ve developed the V100 using the same cutting edge expertise, as demonstrated in over 6,500 2 MWturbines worldwide.

So no matter where your site is, you can rely on the 2 MW platform to deliver high productivity and low cost of energy.

nO PrObleM.

wind. it MeAns the wOrld tO us. vestas.comTM

Documents

Rolling out an industry - EWEA June 10...Rolling out an industry How wind energy went global ... liquidity squeeze in banks meant more traditional ... 6 WiNd direCTions | June 2010