Wind manufacturers must scale-up production capacities rapidly to meet the massive demand in fresh renewable energy to reach Europe’s 2030 targets, the sector was told at the opening of the WindEurope 2023 conference in Copenhagen – prompting calls from the industry for support in “cash”.
Germany alone this year will auction off some 12GW in onshore and another almost 8GW in offshore wind capacity, with about the same amount planned next year, said Patrick Graichen, climate state secretary at Germany’s economics and climate ministry.
All over Europe “north of 150GW of wind offshore” is targeted in the North and Baltic Seas, he said, adding that if all goals from EU member states in all green power technologies are added up, the bloc would reach a renewable power share of 68-70% by 2030.
“It is now time to think big. Speed and scale are the two main words when it comes to combating the climate crisis,” Graichen told industry experts in a panel on strengthening Europe’s wind supply chain.
“My question to you is how do you triple or quadruple your production capacity over the next few years?
“If we look at what Europe wants and needs by 2030, you need to ramp up your production capacity now.”
However, Tim Dawidowsky, chief operating officer at Siemens Gamesa, pointed to the dire current situation of the wind manufacturing sector, which has accumulated losses in the wake of supply chain bottlenecks triggered by Covid-19 and Russia’s war on Ukraine, as well as raw material and other cost inflation.
“It is not sustainable. We cannot continue making losses,” Dawidowsky warned.
To support European growth targets “requires a tremendous amount of investment. And that requires, as a manufacturer, direct support, I would say cash.
“It is less a question of finance and credit. It is more cash support in order to go for the investments.”
The EU is already making a great effort to address the industry’s needs in order to avoid swapping the dependence on Russian energy with another dependence on (presumably Chinese) manufacturers, Kerstin Jorna, the European Commission’s director general for the internal market, industry, entrepreneurship and SMEs at the European Commission, told the same audience.
Jorna pointed to recent EU legislation to lessen Europe’s dependence on critical raw materials, and to help green technology producers through its Net Zero Industry Act, which she hoped will lead to massive deployment of new renewables capacity. She also said efforts to streamline permitting will lead to ‘one-stop-shop’ procedures that are faster and simpler.
The EU’s efforts are great, but when it comes to implementation, “things become more vague,” Dawidowsky said.
“The whole Net Industry Act says basically nothing about direct investment help,” he stressed.
“Let’s be honest, this is the main challenge we have today. It is not that we have no idea about the technology. We know what to build. That is not the problem.
“At this point I time, from a manufacturing perspective, we don’t simply know how to finance all of that.”
