At the end of 2005, an estimated 47,000 wind turbines were installed in Europe, generating 83 TWh of electricity, equal to about 2.8% of European electricity demand. The average size of turbines delivered to the European market in 2004 was about 1.3 MW onshore and 2.1 MW offshore. Under the assumption that by 2030, the […]
It is widely perceived that because the wind resource is intermittent, the wind technology is not ‘reliable’ enough to be a major power source. Watching a single wind turbine stop and start, it might seem logical to conclude that, as more of these machines are built, the result can only be an unreliable supply. The […]
The European wind resource There is enough wind energy resources to power all of Europe, whose current consumption is 2,900 TWh.
The electricity production from wind energy and its contribution to meeting European electricity consumption is: 83 TWh in 2005 (2.8% of European electricity demand), to 188 TWh in 2010 (5.5%), to 523 TWh in 2020 (13.4%), to 965 TWh in 2030 (22.6%). EWEA Targets In 1991 EWEA set a target to install 4,000 MW of […]
International Energy Agency Reference or baseline scenarios are not presented as business-as-usual or fixed outcomes, but typically are used for comparison, and present the theoretical case where no action is taken, which is not considered a politically realistic viewpoint. The IEA Reference scenario “takes into account all government policies and initiatives that had been adopted […]
European Commission Baseline scenarios provide a reference comparison for a range of alternative scenarios and energy policy options. The reference scenario from IEA and the Commission on wind power are described here. In earlier reports the data was not separated from other renewables such as solar and geothermal. The European Commission made no estimates for […]
For long-term energy scenarios, there are two established authorities. The European Commission has been publishing its long-term energy scenarios since the 1990s. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published its World Energy Outlook which has a Reference Scenario and recently, Alternative Scenario. EWEA provides wind energy data for Europe. To date, all targets and future […]
Wind technology has made major progression from the prototypes of just 25 years ago. Wind energy has come of age, and now constitutes a mainstream power technology that is largely underexploited. Two decades of technological progress have resulted in today’s wind turbines acting much more like conventional power stations, in addition to being modular and […]
Climate change poses one of the greatest challenges to the world community, and energy technology will play a central role. Implementation of the Kyoto Protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the driving policy framework for the EU. The 2005 Spring Council endorsed the target of limiting the future global average […]
Europe is facing an energy crisis. We now live in an era of energy uncertainty. The days of cheap and abundantly available energy are over. Europe is running out of indigenous energy resources at a time of increased prices, diminishing resources and their concentration into fewer, more geopolitically sensitive regions, and greater international competition for […]
