The focus of the wind industry will be squarely on Germany next week as WindEnergy Hamburg opens its doors for the global sector’s largest exhibition and conference.
Recharge will be at the heart of the action as official event news partner, and our dedicated WindEnergy Hamburg Live Centre website is already up and running. Visit it throughout the event for the latest news, analysis and interviews from Hamburg Messe and Congress.
The range of pressing issues facing the industry and set to be high on the agenda in Hamburg was on full display in Recharge’s coverage this week.
They include the continuing challenges of getting projects consented, brought into focus by voters’ rejection of major offshore wind plans in Sweden in an early setback for newly minted developer Skyborn Renewables.
Permitting, along with grids and power market reforms, was on a list of urgent action points flagged this week by more than 100 wind industry players ahead of the COP27 climate summit later this year.
Hamburg will also take place under the shadow of Europe’s ongoing energy crisis, which is creating huge upheavals across the continent including in Germany itself, where the government this week staged a full takeover of stricken utility Uniper.
Challenging times indeed for the wind and wider renewables industry – but the bigger picture is one of vast opportunity. There is no better current example than the decision by the Netherlands, a tiny nation in world terms, to unveil a 70GW offshore wind goal that puts it at the very forefront of global ambitions.
Further south we have Portugal, which this week again upped the ante for its first offshore wind tender to 10GW as its environment minister pledged to “accelerate everything renewable” – surely a policy mantra to cheer all our hearts ahead of Hamburg.
Europe is far from alone in raising the bar on renewable energy ambitions – the US and its states are engaged in their own ongoing green escalation programme.
Take New Jersey, which this week unveiled an increased 11GW by 2040 offshore wind goal that is the highest among any state, outstripping New York’s 9GW.
Its neighbour was not out of the spotlight for long, however, and within days had unveiled a new green power salvo of its own in the form of a multi-gigawatt onshore renewables tender.
There is of course no point building vast new renewable capacity if it cannot be moved where it is needed, and President Joe Biden is keen to see the nation’s retiring fossil assets handing over their grid links to new green electrons. Exactly that is on the cards in Montana, where plans for the state’s largest wind project include piggy-backing on the substation of a decommissioned coal power facility.
