WindEurope Bulletin
WindEurope Bulletin May 2023
8 May 2023
CEO Foreword
Dear WindEurope member,
A huge thank you to all of you who came to Copenhagen for WindEurope’s Annual Event. Nearly 16,000 people took part over the three days, far more than any previous WindEurope event. It was great to see such a buzzing and collaborative atmosphere. And to sense everyone’s determination to tackle the challenges facing our industry. Thank you for all support with the event. As a WindEurope member, you can access the event proceedings for free through the Members Area. And check out the photos from the event here.
The focus of the event was “It’s time …” – for Governments and others to deliver on the simplification of permitting, grid build-out, electrification and support for the wind supply chain. See our video on this here. Key highlights of the event included:
- the announcement of a new interconnector between the Netherlands and the UK, “LionLink”, linking offshore wind farms;
- the launch of the new prototype digital tool which WindEurope have developed with Amazon and Accenture to help public authorities streamline wind farm approval processes. This new “EasyPermits” platform will help authorities automate and speed up their workflows and enhance transparency. More about it here.
- detailed discussions with environmental NGOs and military authorities on co-existence of wind energy and their respective interests; and
- the participation in person of 10 Ministers from different Governments, the EU Energy Commissioner and IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol, and a number of Government officials. It’s invaluable to us to be able to impress on these people the size and scale of our industry when they see the exhibition and packed conference halls – and to give them a sense of our resilience, innovation and determination for renewables to be made in Europe.
We look forward to seeing you at next year’s annual event. We’ll be back in Bilbao on 19-21 March 2024. 90% of the stand space has already been sold – you can still book here.
The day before the Copenhagen event the North Sea Summit took place in Ostend. Nine Heads of Government met with the President of the EU Commission and committed to new goals on offshore wind: 120 GW by 2030 and 300 GW by 2050 (for the North Sea, Irish and Celtic Seas and North Atlantic). They also focused on the need to expand the offshore wind supply chain and to accelerate grid built-out. Over 100 companies from across the offshore wind value chain issued a declaration spelling out what Governments need to do to reach these targets – and the need for offshore wind to be “made in Europe”. You can read more here.
Last month also saw final agreement on the new EU Renewables Directive (RED III). It brings in binding new rules on permitting, enshrining much of what was agreed in last year’s emergency measures on this. The new rules are already unlocking projects, notably with the new “overriding public interest” provision. Germany permitted 2 GW of new onshore wind in Q1 2023. You can read more about all this here.
Finally, this year’s WindEurope Technology Workshop is in Lyon on 1-2 June. We’ll be looking at how to boost yield, improve operations, make the most of wind farm data and manage climate impacts. The programme is online, and you can register here.
Kind regards,
Giles Dickson
WindEurope Intelligence Platform
Our featured products this month
Wind energy finance and investment
This tool gives the historic wind energy financing and capital cost figures by country and technology, including a database of all onshore and offshore final investment decisions (FIDs) in Europe to date.
Wind Turbine Orders Monitoring – Q1 2023
This report summarises the announced wind turbine orders in each quarter of the year. It also provides a market analysis of the industry based on the number of orders, capacity ordered, sellers, buyers and other sectorial and technology indicators.
Members Successes
QPS and TrueOcean join forces to unlock more value from hydrographic data
Maritime software solutions provider QPS and marine geo-information specialist TrueOcean have teamed up to develop digital workflows that can optimise the journey of hydrographic data from ping to cloud, by improving on traditional data sharing practices including the use of hard drives or standalone cloud services.
The partners are working together to take the next steps in digitising the data value process in offshore projects. Their focus is on building seamless integration between industry leading QPS software solutions and the cutting-edge new TrueOcean Marine Data Platform (MDP), with the shared objective of eliminating friction and accelerating data exchange.
The goal is to get information to end users faster by making it possible to directly upload QPS proprietary data to the TrueOcean MDP without data conversion and including valuable meta data from the QPS format. Data can be viewed directly within the platform and extracted into other QPS products for additional analysis.
The TrueOcean MDP gives QPS users an intelligent dataspace to store data centrally, securely, and at scale, with the added benefit that data has less chance of being lost or corrupted compared to using physical media for storage and sharing. The platform enables more effective collaboration between internal and external stakeholders while making it easier and faster to access data through unique capabilities such as geospatial searching using a map-based interface.
As a result of the partnership, the QPS .qpd file format will be accessible directly on the MDP, increasing efficiency for users who can quickly get an overview of the content at the touch of a button. The scalability of the TrueOcean MDP along with faster processing are expected to unlock further efficiencies for hydrographic functions powered by QPS’ software solutions.
“Our joint endeavours will provide solutions to streamline the ability to access value from QPS data by accelerating access and sharing among stakeholders,” said Frithjof Hennemann, CEO, TrueOcean.
“With QPS as a domain partner we merge geo-information and hydrographic functionalities for enhanced data processing features. Verified information will become the key asset and our aim is to make it easily accessible for all project stakeholders without the necessity to be domain experts,” adds Hennemann.
“The demand for offloading QPS proprietary data through a GIS system is growing. QPS sees the need for customers to provide data to their end customers through such platforms and we want to respond to this request from our customers. We want to make it as simple and efficient as possible and provide the best possible solutions to our customers,” concluded Almar Hollaar, Managing Director, QPS.
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!
WindEurope Technology Workshop 2023
When: 1-2 June
Where: Lyon
Are you looking to make the most out of your wind farm data? Are you curious about the long-term effects of climate change on wind farm output? Wondering what AI might mean for turbines going forward? How about resource assessment?
WindEurope’s Technology Workshop is a chance for the industry’s technical minds to hammer away at the big challenges – boosting our yield, improving forecasting, refining our monitoring and strengthening resource assessment. And this year we’re heading to the Centre du Congrès in Lyon, France from 1-2 June.
We’ll have a range of speakers and technical sessions which you can check out here. You’ll have a chance to meet leading innovators and experts from all over Europe. With the gastronomic delights of France’s second city at your doorstep!
See who has already registered. We’ll see you in Lyon in a few weeks.
RE-Source 2023
When: 25-27 October
Where: Amsterdam
The RE-Source Event – Europe’s annual gathering of green energy buyers and sellers – returns to Amsterdam from 25-27 October! European corporate renewable energy sourcing has boomed in recent years, and new opportunities and markets for buyers and sellers are expanding all the time.
Don’t miss out on this unique corporate PPA get-together!
WindEurope Annual Event 2024: Book your stand now!
When: 19-21 March
Where: Bilbao
After such a memorable event in Copenhagen, our eyes are turned to the Basque Country for next year’s key wind energy gathering in Bilbao, from 19-21 March 2024!
You can expect the same wide-ranging conference, buzzing exhibition and diverse attendance – with 10,000+ visitors expected from right across the industry and beyond!
As an exhibitor you’ll be putting yourself front and centre of Europe’s wind energy scene – giving your brand unique visibility during the Event.
Only 10% of stands are still up for sale! Make sure you book yours now – click here to see what’s available!
Giles & Pierre – Is grid expansion the new permitting?
We saw progress on permitting last month with the RED III revision – and the positive impacts of these measures are starting to be felt in Germany. But in the meantime, are grids becoming the next big hurdle? And what actions are policymakers taking to address this bottleneck?
Join Giles & Pierre as we look at the recent North Seas Summit, WindEurope’s Annual Event, and what the upcoming Spanish Council Presidency might mean for the EU’s energy plans.
Check out any other Windflix installments you might have missed here