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Wind Energy has been termed as the most viable option for power generation in future. Wind Energy is a significant improvement over fossil fuels and nuclear plants. It carries significantly lesser risk in term of the methods of production, lesser CO2 emissions and it helps on cutting down high costs associated with fossil fuels.
The European Union is heading the energy revolution by producing a large fraction of the annual power generated through wind energy. EU has recorded some of the highest numbers in terms of production and installing windmills to produce clean and sustainable power. However, the statistics indicate that it would take the EU at least 5x more windmills to get climate-neutral power production.
The European Wind Energy market has experienced stable growth over the last decade with a 25 per cent increase in the amount of power generated throughout Europe. There has been an increase of about 19 per cent in terms of the new windmills installed and produced.
Spain, Germany and France are the top three countries among the ones with the highest demand for windmills. Leading EU countries with respect to the amount of Wind Energy produced is given below:
The coverage of Wind Energy has not reached its limit in Europe, countries like Sweden and the U.K. still have a significantly lower density of windmills per square meter of area. This indicates that the demand is still expected to go up as Wind Energy arises as a probable alternative to fossil fuels and Nuclear Plants.
To achieve climate neutrality as well as enough power reserves for the smooth supply of Wind Energy is expected to increase with unprecedented growth rates. The targets to be achieved by the EU in terms of the amount of Wind Energy produced gives an optimistic picture of the forecasted demand for Wind Energy in the next decade.
Chinese companies are producing and selling 5x more wind turbines per year than the EU, with economies of scale in favour of China, the cost to produce Wind turbines is significantly lower for China relative to the EU.
With the changing competition dynamics of wind turbine production, the European companies are planning to expand their production number in order to compete with the lower costs of the Chinese markets.
With an increase in the onshore market size of Germany, Italy and France, Enercon has exceeded Vestas as the leading producer of wind turbines in Europe. The companies with the highest market share in wind turbine production are given below:
Europe based wind turbine manufacturers like Orsted have experienced significant growth in revenue as the market for Wind Energy expands beyond the horizons of Europe and its neighboring countries.
The European Wind Energy Technology Platform (TPWind) has been set up to drive Europe’s expedition into research and development efforts to drive down the cost of production of Wind Energy as well as increasing the efficiency of the process.
The breakup of cost-cutting efforts involves a contribution of about 40 per cent from R&D and the other 60 per cent from economies of scale. Consistent efforts in both of these directions to drive down the manufacturing costs have been taken up by the TPWind.
The challenges in achieving satisfactory levels of R&D would require proper distribution of research efforts throughout different countries in Europe. With arising concerns about the funding and Intellectual property rights, its necessary that these different countries work towards the same long-term goals and a shared sense of responsibility.
TPwind plans to venture out of the wind energy industry to look for synergies creating an ecosystem of renewable energy manufacturing research as well which would contribute in finding essential factors that would influence Europe’s efforts to increase their reliance on renewable energy.
TPWind’s efforts would also include working on the applicability if the finished product i.e. household electricity consumption and to test how effectively it can be integrated with Europe’s electricity system.
Covid-19 has affected almost every sector of the European economy. The Wind Energy manufacturers experienced challenges in the supply chains and logistics areas of production with strict guidelines for working and production during the lockdown.
Covid-19 also drove down the demand for electricity generation which didn’t affect the wind energy sector as it kept consistently producing the amount of electricity required and kept setting up new farms for a wider reach and expansion. When the demand for electricity recovered to the usual levels in Europe, the wind energy supplied a 24% share of electric power throughout Europe.
It has also affected the channels to accumulate loans and capital to keep the production of wind turbines going and a shortage of capital for expansionary purposes was noted but the wind energy industry recovered shortly as investors ended up doubling down their capital infusions in the wind energy industry signaling that it is a future-proof channel of energy production and ultimately a significant contributor to Europe’s economy and employment opportunities.
