The EWEA 2014 Annual Event was held from 10 to 13 March in Barcelona and attracted over 8,000 participants from 84 countries. Although at present the Spanish wind energy market is not flourishing as much as it has done in the past, because of the cancelling of all subsidies by the government, this year’s event was busier than the last couple of years and it seems that the optimism is back as well. During the last few years people talked mostly about the recession and were not so optimistic about the industry in general. For many companies last year’s theme was about retrofitting of ‘older’ turbines, while this year many manufacturers introduced new or upgraded turbines at the show. Of course retrofitting continues to be important as this extends the lifetime of turbines and increases the annual energy production, thus increasing the overall energy production and lowering the cost of energy (CoE).

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