Europe announces help for the struggling wind power sector

During her annual State of the European Union speech, Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, announced a new ‘Wind Power Package’ to help ensure manufacturing for the supply chain will remain in Europe.

“It’s very good the Commission is going to do this. It can’t come soon enough given the crisis our industry is facing now. And the President is absolutely right: it is essential that wind energy continues to be made in Europe,” said Giles Dickson, CEO, WindEurope.

Real risk

As she addressed the EU Green Deal, von der Leyen stressed that the wind industr was facing a unique set of challenges and that unless policies are changed, European manufacturing could go.

The EU and governments have set ambitious targets – 420GW of wind energy by 2030. But the reality in the wind industry does not reflect this ambition and the struggles of the European wind supply chain mean Chinese turbine manufacturers are now starting to win orders.

Dickson said that because they offer cheaper turbines, looser standards and unconventional financial terms, there is a very real risk that the expansion of wind energy will be made in China, not in Europe.

The EU Commission’s Package aims to fast-track permitting, improve auction systems and focus on skills, access to finance and stable supply chains.

Permitting remains one of the biggest bottlenecks with around 80GW of projects are still stuck in bureaucratic processes.

Von der Leyen has called the wind industry “a European success story”. But Dickson said wind can become an even bigger success story for Europe.

Many more workers will be needed to build wind farms – translating into at least 200,000 extra jobs by 2030 and billions of investments in individual EU countries. But there is a lack of workers with the right profile at the moment so the EU Commission needs to have a bigger focus on skills too.