Manufacturing The bigger they are
The wind power industry faces a size problem, as competition within the sector has led to a race for bigger and bigger turbines. Many executives throughout Europe are now calling for a cap on turbine sizes, looking instead for a period of standardisation to help provide stability. Martin Morris speaks with Guy Willems of WindEurope and Shashi Barla of Brinckmann to learn more about the benefi ts a cap could offer.
hile the EU has set a target for 43% of its electricity consumption to be met by wind generation by 2030, up from 17% today – requiring 30GW of new wind farms every year – the industry currently faces a perfect storm. In the recovery period after the pandemic, ‘cheap money’ has been abandoned as interest rates have risen in response to inflation escalation; technological issues as turbines become larger; and the longer-term threat of Chinese players dominating the European wind space with more competitive financing offerings. There’s certainly cause for concern. Against this backdrop, previously secured competitive tenders that locked in their remuneration schemes are now suddenly less competitive and lowering returns are leading
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to greater caution. Indeed, some projects have even seen developers willing to pay termination fees to get out of their projects.
An extreme example of the state of the industry can be seen in the recent catastrophic failure of a UK wind auction in September, where potentially up to 5GW of projects – enough to power eight million homes a year – were up for grabs. Though contracts for a total of 3.7GW of solar
power, onshore wind and tidal power projects were secured, the offshore wind farm space saw no takers – with developers baulking at the UK government’s offer of £44 per megawatt hour (MWh), which was seen by potential bidders as being far too low to make investment worthwhile. So, what can be done to address this?
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World Wind Technology /
www.worldwind-technology.com
orld Wind Technology /
www.worldwind-technology.com
Fabrizio Maffei/
Shutterstock.com
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