WindEurope’s newly-launched ‘Wind Energy Outlook to 2023′ highlights that there is an uncertainty on how EU’s wind energy will develop in the following five years, something that will be primarily impacted by the Governments’ moves and results to the fact that the UK will hold the 35% of offshore wind in this timeframe.
The report presents the doubt around how much wind energy capacity will grow in Europe in the next five years. The growth depends on the Governments’ moves.
# Scenario1: If governments begin producing clear and ambitious National Energy & Climate Plans (NECPs), they also enhance the permitting arrangements for wind farms and further invest in new grid capacity, then the EU’s energy capacity will increase from 88 GW to 277 GW by 2023.
# Scenario2: On the contrary, if the NECPs are unambitious and bring challenges, then EU will install less new wind power: 67 GW. According to the report, permitting issues are already challenging, leading to undersubscribed auctions (notably in Germany) and lower installation rates than expected.
# Scenario3: If permitting improves crucially and the NECPs are more than ambitious Europe will install 112 GW.
Consequently, the report indicates that EU’s wind capacity in the next five years will range from 13 and 22 GW.
This uncertainty weighs heavily on the supply chain and could impact the significant cost reductions achieved in recent years.
Concerning the three possible scenarios, over three-quarters of the new installations will be onshore wind. Spain, Sweden and Norway are currently leading the growth in onshore wind. Germany is installing much less this year, and its outlook remains uncertain for the rest of the period. France may show continued steady growth in onshore wind.
The UK will account for 35% of the growth in offshore wind over the next five years, followed by the Netherlands and Germany. Recently, the UK awarded contracts for world’s largest offshore wind farm, which will be operated by Equinor and located more than 130 km east of the Yorkshire Coast in the UK North Sea. This development comes in line with UK Plans to reach decarbonization by 2050.
The report also notes that in the five years following,22 GW of wind energy capacity will reach the end of its normal operational life, the 20 years. Most of this will get a lifetime extension. Around 2 GW will be repowered. And another 2 GW will be fully decommissioned. Government policy and regulation is still not as supportive of repowering as it should be.
Concluding, WindEurope CEO Giles Dickson commented
Wind energy should be growing rapidly when you consider all the interest in climate change plus the fact the wind is the cheapest from of new power energy production. But there is real uncertainty about how far it’s going to expand in the next five years. And many Governments simply haven’t decided yet how much new wind they want and when and how they’re going to build it…If they’re not ambitious we won’t meet the 32% renewables target let alone any higher targets.