European Wind Energy Association increases targets to 230 GW by 2020

Announcing new figures at the European Wind Energy Conference and Exhibition, which ran all of last week, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) has increased its latest targets for installed wind capacity from 180 gigawatts (GW) to 230 GW by 2020. There are now a total of 65 GW of wind power in the EU, producing some 142 Terawatt-hours (TWh) of electricity, about 4.2% of demand.
Despite the depth of this political support, the sector does acknowledge that it will inevitably experience a short-term slow down during the financial crisis. For example, previously the EWEA target of 180 GW included 35 GW of offshore capacity, whereas the new numbers include just 40 GW of offshore, a declining proportion that reflects the more marginal nature of such developments and the difficulty in executing such developments in the wake of the credit crunch.
Indeed, in a new market analysis by Emerging Energy Research (EER), also released at the EWEC conference, the company notes that the financial crisis is to some extent stalling Europe’s wind energy market, with new wind plant commissions dropping by as much as 19% this year when compared to 2008. The company’s analysis finds that Europe is expected to add 7836 megawatts (MW) of wind capacity in 2009, down from 9556 MW in 2008. Western Europe will see the biggest drop in MW added, it says, while longer term, riskier markets in Eastern Europe and offshore may see delays.
The company says that the global credit crunch is leading to project postponements in key scaling markets such as the UK, Italy and France. With project finance almost frozen, only large players with strong balance sheets will be able to build new capacity in 2009, it says. Furthermore, according to EER, major utilities such as EDP, Iberdrola, Endesa, E.ON or RWE have already secured financing for their short-term pipelines, while smaller players have been forced to look for partners or to put their growth plans on stand-by.
Even so EER also concludes that the long-term fundamentals of Europe’s wind energy sector remain strong, particularly after 2010.
In total at EWEC 2009 there were over 7,500 participants, made up of 1,900 delegates and
5,600 exhibition visitors. The exhibition covered 10,000m2 and featured 390 companies,
making it three times bigger than the exhibition at EWEC 2008 in Brussels. Next year
EWEC 2010 will be held in Warsaw, Poland from 20 to 23 April.
More information on EWEC 2010 can be found on www.ewec2010.info.

from : http://www.sustainableenergyworld.eu