Aenert news. Energy Exhibitions & Conferences
The European wind industry has gathered during 25-27^th of April in Copenhagen, for its annual in-depth event, hosted by WindEurope, which actively promotes wind energy across Europe, coordinates international policy, wind technologies research and analysis.

The 2023 programme covered debates on every aspect of wind energy today: supply chains, permitting, grids, sustainability, finance, resource assessment and more.

Over 330 speakers from Europe and beyond, from policy to industry, education to finance, local and European authorities and international bodies looked at how to deliver a rapid buildout of wind and doubling down on the major obstacles.

This year’s edition was the biggest WindEurope event so far. Close to 16,000 visitors and more than 500 exhibitors participated. They were joined by European Energy Ministers, wind industry leaders, investors and technology experts.



The 2023 edition came at a crucial point, since European Union plans to accelerate the expansion of onshore and offshore wind projects to strengthen Europe’s energy security and ensure competitive electricity prices for European markets.
WindEurope 2023 annual event focused on 5 key challenges, which the industry is currently dealing with:

  1. Support and expand the wind energy supply chain
  2. Acceleration of permitting
  3. Predictability of projects
  4. Increasing costs
  5. Electrification of the economy

Support and expand the wind energy supply chain

The wind energy supply chain is struggling. Despite GWEC Global Wind Report 2023 states that global commitment to renewable energy is stronger than ever, the added 78 GW of new wind power capacity in 2022 is the lowest in three years.
The investments in Europe in new wind farms and turbine orders were down in 2022.
The EU revised targets for renewable energy indicate a total of 420 GW of wind energy, up from 205 GW today, which would require a ramp-up of Europe’s manufacturing capacity for wind turbines to 36 GW per year. Such targets would require considerable investments in factories, infrastructure, ports, vessels and in the skilled workforce.

One of the key messages from wind industry developers is that European wind supply chain is too small to deliver on the big targets for 2030. Additionally European supply chain is struggling as well with increasing input costs and supply chain bottlenecks. Nevertheless, Rasmus Errboe, Executive Vice President and CEO Europe at Ørsted, provides an optimistic position: “The complexity we face should not stop us from taking the next step forward.”


                                            
Acceleration of permitting and improvement of auctions set-up for wind projects

According to WindEurope, around 80 GW of wind capacity is currently stuck in permitting processes, which is five times the total wind capacity installed in 2021.
It takes too long for developers to receive permits – up to nine years in some EU countries. The backlog in wind permitting across Europe could be a significant bottleneck for the energy transition and ensure that wind will generate half of Europe’s electricity by 2050.
That’s why Amazon Web Services and Accenture in collaboration with WindEurope developed a digital permitting solution, called Easy Permits. EasyPermits beta system was first tested at the WindEurope annual event. This system represents a digital permitting tool that streamlines the approval process for wind farms in Europe. The platform offers a single location for stakeholders to automate workflows, increase accuracy for wind permit applications and enhance process transparency, which may contribute to a more streamlined permitting process.

In addition to simplification of permitting, several sessions were dedicated to the improvement of auction set-up for wind projects. Global leading developers urged governments to review the offshore wind tenders, especially from sustainability, simplicity and profitability perspective, if they want to achieve their offshore wind growth targets.
Sven Utermöhlen (CEO Offshore Wind at RWE) indicated the complicated tender mechanism for offshore projects during a panel at the wind industry annual event in Copenhagen.



Pipeline of projects is the enabler for further growth

The need for a predictable pipeline of projects has been indicated one of the main obstacles for further growth by leaders of global wind developers.
Standardisation of wind turbine sizes is an important issue; however, it is not a fundamental barrier to growth in the sector.

When discussing the opportunities of floating offshore wind technologies, Jens Olaf Økland (SVP Strategy and Commercial Solutions Renewables at Equinor) indicated that in order to turn a huge ambition into reality, it is important to no longer treat these technologies as pilot solutions – “let’s stop pilots, these technologies are qualified, tested, proven and scaled”.

AENERT has gathered 5671 patent documents (patents and patent applications) related to Offshore wind turbine industry. The in-depth analysis and patent database can be found in our Research & Analysis section on the website.



Increasing costs

According to GlobalData and Energy Monitor, the cost of a wind turbine has increased by 38% during 2020-2022. Most crucial minerals for the wind industry have faced an increase by 93% since 2020. The price of each of these crucial metals increased significantly between 2020 and Q1 2023, ranging from a 23% price increase for zinc to a 285% price increase for molybdenum.
Such abnormal cost increases are challenged by wind industry developers’ and calling on European governments to raise ceiling prices for renewable energy auctions in response. Jan Kjaersgaard, CEO Offshore Wind at GE Renewable Energy, emphasized that the “societal value” of the sector needs to be recognised if the industry is to flourish: “Societies need to accept that the only way the industry can invest is when we make profit, acceptance of the value we bring.”

AENERT has gathered 7095 patent documents (patents and patent applications) related to wind industry maintenance, repair and replacement challenges, such us delivery of component parts, suboptimal organization of transportation or repair work, lack of high-performance tools for maintenance, ineffective equipment condition monitoring. Solving these problems can provide additional reserves for the use of power and represents the most promising way to tackle the increasing operational costs and improve the efficiency of the wind power industry in general.
The in-depth analysis and patent database can be found in our Research & Analysis section on the website.



Electrification of the economy

There are many sectors across the economy that are still relying heavily on fossil fuels. According to EMBER's seventh annual European Electricity Review 2023, wind and solar energy produced a fifth of EU electricity (22%), surpassing natural gas for the first time (20%) and remaining above coal power (16%). Wind power produced 15% of electricity in the region in 2022. However, by 2050 the combined rate of direct and indirect electrification shall reach 75% of Europe’s energy demand, which is a tremendous development from around 25% today.

More and more countries and sectors of the economy are looking into renewable energy solutions. Industry, transport, heating – they’re all queuing up to sign PPAs and other frameworks to go renewable and to electrify. Direct electrification is the easiest way for industries to decarbonize, however still there is a long way to go, until Europe becomes 75% electric. Infrastructure and technology had been the key topics during the annual event dedicated to economy electrification, in addition to constant stimulation of demand side.



Text and photos - Ion Ciorici and Jana Janicka