EU finds its power blowing in the wind

Canberra Times
6 August 2011, Page: 19

Energy producers expect European wind power generation to triple by 2020, with tens of thousands of new, ever-bigger wind turbines springing up, an industry body says. The European Wind Energy Association, which groups energy giants with wind interests and also many involved in nuclear or gasfired electricity generation, issued its figures this week in a new report aiming to influence EU energy policy after 2020.

By the end of last year, the Pure Power report said, wind power produced about 5.3% of demand across the EU's 27 states, some 182 terawatt hours. Its share is tipped to reach 15.7% by 2020, or 581 TWh. By the end of 2010, there were more than 70,000 turbines in operation, and the wind power association says 60,000 more of the same size will be needed to meet 2020 targets, although installing bigger machines could reduce that number to half or less depending on technology developments.

Investment is tipped to rise from 12.7 billion euros ($A16.59 billion) of annual investment in 2010 to $A35.9 billion in 2020, 40% of that investment going into offshore wind farms. Justin Wilkes, of the association, said companies would invest $A262 billion in onshore and, increasingly, offshore wind farms by then, "mainly driven by a strong EU regulatory framework to 2020, which we need also after 2020".

His grouping wants binding European Union targets for renewable energy production, part of a wider climate-action commitment, to be extended from the present 19% to 34% for the decade after 2020. EU states have been increasingly reluctant since the deep recession of the recent years to set binding European-level targets affecting domestic investment needs.

Germany and Spain alone account for well over half of all EU wind power, but Britain, France, Italy and Portugal are also emerging alongside small, but market-leading Denmark, despite strong French Government adherence to its giant nuclear industry, which delivers 80% of France's electricity needs. Scotland, whose independence seeking Government in Edinburgh is already committed to producing 100% of its energy needs from renewables, alone claims one quarter of the EU's coastline.

Germany has turned its back on nuclear after an earthquake and tsunami caused an accident at a nuclear plant in Japan in March, and the wind power association says the German Government could fill the 20-% gap in its generating capacity with wind within a decade.

The report can be accessed online at www.ewea.org.