WindEurope Bulletin
WindEurope Bulletin April 2024
8 April 2024
A word from the CEO
Dear WindEurope member,
Many thanks to all of you who came to Bilbao for our Annual Event last month. I hope you enjoyed it. There were 12,000 people there in all. As well as the whole value chain of wind, it was good to have a strong presence from the TSOs, academia, the military, biodiversity organisations – and the 500 students who came along. There was a strong turn-out also from the EU institutions and from Europe’s Governments with 11 of them fielding Ministers.
Thank you for your input and support with the event. You can access the event proceedings for free here through the Members Area. You can also look back at the event through the photo gallery here. And here is our 2-minute post-event video
We look forward to seeing you again at our next Annual Event in Copenhagen from 8-10 April 2025.
The theme of the Bilbao event was “our wind, our value” – the value that wind brings to people in Europe: in jobs, investment, community benefits, energy security, national security and in supporting Europe’s biodiversity. We summarised all this in our main event video (3 minutes) – do share it on your social media if you haven’t already.
Having shown how wind supports European values, we should all show our support at the ballot box this June. The upcoming EU elections will have a huge bearing on how Europe’s energy situation plays out in the run up to 2030. And it’s vital that the wind energy community makes itself heard. You can read more about the importance of your vote here. And tell your colleagues, friends and family about it too.
Our industry seems to be turning a corner. Permitting, new investments and auction volumes are all up. Germany alone permitted 7.5 GW of new onshore wind last year, and they’re going to auction 15 GW of onshore this year. And Europe invested €48bn in new wind farms last year – more than double the figure for 2022, with a major recovery in offshore wind investments.
Much of this is due to the stabilisation of our costs after 2 years of high inflation. Government action is helping too, notably on permitting and the indexation of auction tariffs and prices. You can read our analysis here.
A key focus for us now is grid bottlenecks. Too many new wind farms are waiting too long for grid permits. New grid connections aren’t being built fast enough. We need more filtering of grid connection queues. And a new approach to financing grid buildout, with private finance complementing grid fees. The EU are starting to act on all this with their new Grids Action Plan. It’ll be a top priority for the new EU Commission that’ll be appointed in the summer after the EU elections.
Finally a quick look ahead to other events. Our Technology Workshop on resource assessment and analysis of operating wind farms is in Dublin on 10-11 June. The programme is here and we’ve opened registrations – do join us if you can.
And RE-Source 2024, Europe’s leading green corporate sourcing event, returns to Amsterdam on 24-25 October. We’re expecting 1,400+ attendees and 350+ corporate buyers. Click here to save the date.
Kind regards,
Giles Dickson
WindEurope Intelligence Platform
Our featured products this month
Ports are the lynchpin supporting Europe’s offshore wind energy scene – whether for operations & maintenance, transporting turbines to sea, assembling floating turbines or in converting wind to renewable hydrogen.
WindEurope’s Ports Platform provides an outlet for European port authorities active in offshore wind expansion, to share best practices and to engage with industry and policymakers.
This infographic highlights the challenges and the opportunities facing ports as Europe’s offshore wind expansion continues to ramp up – and what they will need to successfully deliver that expansion.
Overview of use of non-price criteria in auctions
The EU State Aid Guidelines for Climate, Energy and Environment allow Governments to use non-price criteria in up to 30% of total evaluation for their auctions. There is a wide range of criteria proposed by different countries, which mostly applies to offshore wind auctions and seabed leases.
This paper is an overview of the proposed criteria across European countries.
Members’ Successes
Youwind accelerates early phase offshore wind development by 80%
With European offshore wind leasing rounds potentially set to award over 80 GW in new projects by 2029 and emerging auctions in the US and Asia-Pacific, offshore wind developers and investors need to significantly increase the pace of analysis for market and site attractiveness, resource availability, and project selection. That’s according to Youwind Renewables, a unique web-based solution for optimising early-stage offshore wind development.
Despite a volatile year for offshore wind development in 2023, a record number of offshore wind development zones will be allocated globally in 2024-2025, driven by national clean energy development targets. But to realise project timelines, developers and their investor partners increasingly need a fast and reliable means of screening early-stage projects to ensure optimal decision-making in the deployment of capital.
By offering a solution that enables developers to rapidly assess project location, wind resource, project layout – including wake losses – and the best installation sequence, Youwind’s technology provides the offshore wind industry with a holistic route to reducing the overall time taken for project site screening by up to 80% – significantly accelerating the project development cycle.
Following a period of significant growth, Youwind has now been used to analyse over 1,000 offshore wind project sites, screening development zones amounting to more than 250 TW of potential installed capacity worldwide. Youwind has also supported several winning tender projects, from the initial screening stages to the final LCoE bid price to present to authorities.
Prominent users include developer Copenhagen Energy, which has used Youwind to support its screening of offshore wind project sites worldwide. Speaking on its deployment of the technology, Jasmin Bejdic, Founder & CEO, Copenhagen Energy, said: “Our strategy is to be an early mover in new high potential markets – developing large-scale offshore wind on a global scale. A fundamental part of this is to be able to act fast, make intelligent site selection and screening decisions and then accelerate the development phases to deliver maximum value to local communities and our stakeholders. Youwind is a solution that is fully aligned with our objectives.”
In an industry that has grappled with continued permitting delays, Youwind provides agile development teams like Copenhagen Energy with the ability to deploy a ‘one-stop-shop’ solution covering the requirements of each early-stage development phase and the specific needs of each project team, and to run complex development scenarios and remove the need to manage multiple data sources.
As developers look to pick up the pace, Youwind’s web-based tools bring much-needed processing power to the market, allowing developers to run comprehensive, bankable simulations for wind farms in just a few minutes – around 8-10 times faster than other solutions available.
“We know that offshore wind has the potential to significantly drive the decarbonisation of global power supplies, but if we’re to support the industry in overcoming its current challenges and decreasing uncertainty, then we need to give developers and investors the tools to expedite the decision-making on which projects to take forward,” added Anna Rivera, Chief Executive Officer, Youwind.
Share your successes with us!
Is your brand bringing new, ground-breaking solutions to the wind industry? Have you recently launched a major project in your field? Do you have positive business news to share?
Then make sure to get in touch with us here at WindEurope – we’ll be happy to promote your success story as part of our monthly Bulletin! This is a chance to share your accomplishments with thousands of others from right across the wind energy value chain – a major visibility boost.
Please be aware that this service is only available to members from the categories C3 and above. Publication of stories is on a first come, first served basis.
Get in touch with our Membership team now to send in your news!
Making steel from wind energy – ArcelorMittal
How do you make steel from wind? ArcelorMittal are doing it at their huge plant in Ghent, with 16 wind turbines on site. Their top management explain how – including their wider plans – in this 13-minute video.
Featuring Giles Dickson – CEO WindEurope, Frederik Van de Velde – CTO ArcelorMittal Europe, and Manfred Van Vlierberghe – CEO ArcelorMittal Belgium.
Events
Thank you all for coming to Bilbao – see you next year!
This year 12,000+ people came to WindEurope’s Annual Event 2024 in Bilbao. Together with 516 exhibitors across the buzzing Bilbao Exhibition Centre, we saw our industry at its best – sharing new insights, strengthening ties, and showing our determination to drive Europe’s energy transition.
Thank you to all of you who took part and helped make it such a memorable get-together! Check out our photo gallery for a look back at some of the highlights. And if you weren’t able to attend, here’s our post-event video – giving you a taste of what to expect at our annual events!
As a member, you also have free access to the conference proceedings.
Our next Annual Event is in Copenhagen, from 8-10 April 2025. More info on this to come over the next few months. We’ll see you there!
WindEurope’s next event – the 2024 Technology Workshop
Now for the next item on the WindEurope calendar! 450+ wind energy experts will be meeting in Dublin’s Clayton Hotel Burlington Road for WindEurope’s annual Technology Workshop, from 10-11 June.
You can look forward to a two-day roundup of the latest leads and breakthroughs in wind resource assessment and analysis of operating wind farms – crucial to boosting our yield and delivering Europe’s energy transition. You’ll also have a chance to network with your colleagues over food and drink – onsite and at some of Dublin’s iconic venues!
Our programme is live – check out some of the topics we’ll be covering. And registration has opened too – do sign up if you haven’t already. And if you have any questions you can get in touch with our team.
Innovation is key to our success, and this is a chance to come together, learn from our peers, and build on our industry’s knowledge – fast-tracking the energy transition in the process.
Don’t miss out! See you in Dublin this June.
RE-Source 2024 – See you in Amsterdam
The 2024 RE-Source Event will take place later this year from 24-25 October in Amsterdam. Since our first event in 2017, RE-Source has become a key annual gathering in the renewables calendar. It is the ideal place to meet renewable corporate buyers and sellers.
What can you look forward to at RE-Source 2024?
- A chance to network with 1,400+ participants.
- Learn from and engage with 100+ senior political and industry speakers.
- Join one of the 350+ prescheduled B2B meetings between clean energy buyers and suppliers.
- Connect with 350+ corporate clean energy buyers.
Stay tuned for more details over the next few months!
WindEnergy Hamburg 2024
WindEnergy Hamburg, the world’s biggest wind industry gathering returns later this year, from 24-27 September. WindEurope will be present onsite as the event’s European Partner – with a dedicated stage and sessions during the conference.
Registrations will open soon but you can still book your stand.
Annual Event 2025 – See you in Copenhagen
WindEurope’s next Annual Event returns to the Bella Center in Copenhagen from 8-10 April 2025!
Exhibition stands are sold out! But a number of sponsorship opportunities are still available – you can talk to our team if you’d like to enhance your company’s visibility.
More info to come over the next few months. See you next year!
