Industrial Accelerator Act will strengthen Europe’s economic resilience

The European Commission today published its Industrial Accelerator Act. It aims to strengthen Europe’s economic competitiveness and to boost its clean tech manufacturing capacity. A simple and harmonised implementation of these new rules will be critical to its success.

The last days have shown, yet again, how vulnerable Europe’s energy system is to geopolitical shocks. Natural gas prices in Europe surged by over 40% since the escalation in the Middle East on 28 February, reaching their highest levels since 2023. Europe is simply too exposed to expensive and volatile fossil fuel imports.

Europe’s energy security and competitiveness will rely on accelerating electrification, and ensuring we have the clean tech to deliver this domestic energy at scale. We simply cannot replace our reliance on imported fossil fuels with reliance on imported technology.

The Industrial Accelerator Act out today identifies wind energy as a critical clean technology to boost Europe’s economic resilience.

“The EU has rightly identified wind energy as a strategic sector: industrial leadership in wind is in Europe’s strategic interest. We welcome this important political signal. Now a simple and harmonised implementation of the new rules is crucial”, says WindEurope CEO Tinne van der Straeten. 

The wind industry is already firmly anchored in Europe – with more than 440,000 jobs, 250 factories producing along the wind energy value chain and €54bn contribution to Europe’s GDP. At the same time, the success of Europe’s wind industry is underpinned by diversified, global supply chains. Getting this balance right is critical to wind delivering the competitive energy Europe needs at scale.

Cybersecurity and trusted partners

The Industrial Accelerator Act confirms that wind auctions will reward projects that are cost competitive but also help deliver critical societal interests. For example, the Industrial Accelerator Act proposes that all wind auctions apply a pre-qualification criterion on cybersecurity. In the current geopolitical environment, this is a very important step towards boosting the resilience of our energy system.

The Industrial Accelerator Act will also factor in the EU’s trusted partners. On this point, Tinne van der Straeten says: “The EU cannot go it alone when it comes to manufacturing clean technology cost competitively. Going forward it’s important to ensure that trusted partners like the UK are treated on a par with EU countries. This will be very important to the success of this industrial strategy.”

Simple and harmonised implementation will be key

The wind industry is stepping up to the task of strengthening Europe’s energy security and industrial competitiveness. Last year it invested €45bn in new wind energy projects which will come online over the next years. According to the latest WindEurope outlook, Europe will build 151 GW of new wind energy capacity by 2030. Clear and simple implementation will be critical to sustaining this momentum.

The new rules will need to be simple enough for Member States to apply them in the same way. We call on co-legislators to adopt clear and simple text and on national Governments to ensure a harmonised implementation of the new rules. Otherwise, Europe risks creating a patchwork of national regulations which will only increase the administrative burden on companies and drive up costs.