The wind power expansion this year will be around 30% less than expected in Europe, and up to 20% less world-wide, as both the construction of new wind farms and turbine manufacturing have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdowns, WindEurope and the Global Wind Energy Council said.

“The construction of new wind farms and the manufacturing of new wind turbines has been impacted. And they have been impacted by delays in the movement of workers, and equipment and components into the factories, equipment out of factories to the construction sites,” WindEurope chief executive Giles Dickson said at a digital press conference ahead of the to-be-delayed WindEnergy Europe conference and exhibition in December.

“We had expected to install 18GW of new capacity. We are now expecting to install 12GW of new capacity.”

But Dickson was upbeat that while Covid-19 is a huge hit to the EU economy, the economic block’s recovery plan presented last week had singled out wind and other renewables as ‘policy fundamentals of the recovery.’

“And wind will deliver. It is cheap, reliable and already 15% of Europe’s electricity. The EU wants it to be 50% by 2050. That means huge investments. It means investing now. It means the jobs and growth that are needed now. The EU is unleashing all its firepower to drive a green recovery - €1.85 trillion,” he said.

On a world-wide scale, GWEC expects a reduction of 16-20% from the 76GW in fresh capacity it had assumed previously. The global effect seen is somewhat less dramatic than in Europe as China is the biggest market, where February and March traditionally show less construction activity due to the Chinese New Year. The coronavirus crisis hit China most strongly during that time.

Markus Tacke, chief executive of turbine manufacturer Siemens Gamesa, also acknowledged that the virus outbreak had a significant implication on the company’s supply chain, as well as the sourcing of some scarce resources.

“In (turbine) erection and commissioning, we have to say, the movement of goods worked surprisingly well. The movement of people, labour, skills - that is much more complicated and had a significant implication on the execution of projects,” Tacke said at the same press conference.

In offshore wind, Siemens Gamesa tested crews before putting them into quarantine. If a crew was “clean”, Tacke said, vessels could leave the port and stay at sea on extended working time for four or more weeks.

Siemens Gamesa has also been testing people coming back to factories, imposed social distancing and hygiene rule at plants, and luckily has not seen a spread of the virus at one of its facilities, Tacke added.

Messe Hamburg has earlier said it is postponing WindEnergy Hamburg to December 1-4 of this year due to restrictions on major events and international travelling, from 22-25 September planned earlier.

Hamburg Messe chief executive Bernd Aufderheide said the rescheduling was generally well perceived in the industry, with the overwhelming majority of exhibitors and all of the big manufacturers staying on board.

The organizers are working on new health and safety measures such as a different floor layout with more space between exhibitors, as well as the generation of fresh air at the premises.

“We are confident we can have a safe atmosphere in Hamburg,” Aufderheide said.

Wind

Covid-19 seen slashing 2020 wind additions by 30% in Europe and up to a fifth globally