Mark Young, head of cleaner energy services at DNV KEMA Energy & Sustainability, concurs. He hopes to “promote active knowledge-sharing” during the session he will chair on the latest operation and maintenance technology.
“I want the audience to leave with more understanding than they arrived with, an awareness of new technology, tangible bits of information, and actual experiences,” Young says.
The global downturn and the eurozone crisis have made life difficult for many industries. Wind has not escaped unscathed, but its leaders remain optimistic.
“Despite the problems facing us today, we must not forget that the wind industry has achieved incredible levels of growth compared to ten years ago,” says Julian Scola, director of communications at the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).
“There are major challenges ahead, not least increasing concerns about changes in support mechanisms, worries about grid development and the snail’s pace progress towards an internal EU electricity market, and the fact that many turbine manufacturers are struggling in a crisis-hit market.
“But wind is becoming ever more competitive, and if we face these challenges head-on together, the prospects are excellent for the future of the European wind market.”
Stanford is also positive about the prospects, although she suggests that new challenges lie ahead. The industry needs to use arguments that resonate in the current economic climate, she urges. This means better communicating the facts about “economics, jobs and green growth, and showing how wind is affordable”.
Keynote speaker Reinhold Mitterlehner, the Austrian economy minister, is in no doubt about these benefits.
“Wind power not only contributes to Austria’s energy security and climate protection, but also plays an increasingly important role for our economy,” he says. “Each new wind farm creates growth [and] jobs, and establishes new technological know-how in the region.”
At a global policy level, there is also an optimistic message. The International Energy Agency’s (IEA’s) 2012 World Energy Outlook report says wind and other renewables will become the world’s second-largest source of power generation by 2015, and close in on coal by 2035.
The IEA’s chief economist, Fatih Birol, and Ireland’s energy minister, Pat Rabbitte, who launched the report in November, will both deliver keynote speeches at the conference launch.
As well as being positive about the role of renewables in the future energy mix, Birol is emphatic about another of the report’s key tenets: energy efficiency. “Action to improve energy efficiency would bring substantial energy security and economic benefits, including cutting fuel bills by 20% on average,” he says.
Investigating the emerging markets of Eastern Europe and further afield will also be a focus of the conference.
Turkey’s energy minister, Taner Yildiz, is another keynote speaker. Delegates will hear his views on the EU’s trial electricity transmission synchronisation with Turkey that has been ongoing for the past three years.
The trial will be prolonged until September this year, when the European network of electricity transmission system operators will decide whether to maintain a permanent alternating-current interconnection between the continental European and Turkish networks.
For his part, Rabbitte has pledged to make advancing grid development and the internal energy market a priority of Ireland’s six-month presidency of the Council of the EU. “Without physical connections between markets, there can’t really be a proper single market,” he warns. “If transmission system developers do not see any certainty post-2020, then there is a real danger that they will delay making investment decisions.”
Rabbitte has promised to share all the energy objectives of the Irish presidency in his keynote speech at EWEA 2013.
For full details of EWEA 2013, visit the event's website here
