Follow us at  twitter

US Wind Power Reached New Heights in 2019 and Continues to Set Records in 2020

View from Inside AWEA May June 2020Wind power became America’s largest provider of renewable energy in 2019 and was the top choice for new utility-scale power. Offshore wind activity picked up as states introduced new development targets. Construction and installations remained strong during the first quarter of 2020.
 
By Celeste Wanner, Research & Analytics Manager, American Wind Energy Association

Read more ...

The Promise of Seasonal Storage

Marcel Eijgelaar, Researcher, DNV GLThe energy transition is well under way and the capacity of wind and solar generation is increasing. Still, to reach the targets agreed upon in the Paris Agreement these are not happening fast enough, especially as decarbonisation becomes increasingly more difficult. One of the challenges yet to be tackled is developing scalable solutions to cope with the variations in electricity generation and demand.
 
By Marcel Eijgelaar, Researcher, DNV GL

Read more ...

A Dangerous Trend is Challenging the Success of Wind Power Around the Globe: Concentration and Monopolisation

Stefan GsangerToday it seems to be common sense that renewables are understood to be decentralised energy sources, which also bring manifold new benefits. As renewables need to and can be harvested locally and practically everywhere, people all over the world have the opportunity to benefit from the resulting economic developments.
 
By Stefan Gsänger, Secretary General, World Wind Energy Association, Germany

Read more ...

All Aboard: How Today’s Workforce Can Help Treble Highly Skilled Jobs by 2030

Vicky AshtonEarlier in 2019, the UK’s Offshore Wind Sector Deal set ambitious targets to more than treble highly skilled jobs from 7,200 today to 27,000 by 2030. Whose job is it to find the workers we will need?
 
By Vicki Ashton, Strategic Resourcing and Talent Manager for JDR Cable Systems, part of TFKable Group, UK

Read more ...

China Playing Catch-up in Offshore Turbine Technology

FengIn 2018, 11 manufacturers installed 735 units of offshore wind turbines globally, totalling 3,693MW of capacity. Six out of the top ten suppliers are from China: Shanghai Electric, Envision, Goldwind, Mingyang, United Power and XEMC. While China is certainly dominant in terms of supplying offshore turbines, it is still playing catch-up in terms of offshore turbine technology.
 
By Feng Zhao, Strategy Director, Global Wind Energy Council

Read more ...

Will Consolidation Thwart Innovation in Renewables?

Andre Moura Pro DroneOver the past decade the energy sector has seen unprecedented moves towards consolidation with systematic mergers and acquisitions among utilities, original equipment manufacturers and Internet service providers. This is a natural market tendency when searching for economies of scale and pooling of resources especially in a market plagued by uncertainty. Operational excellence and economic leverage are the targets used to deliver improved performance that should ultimately translate into savings for the end user. However, there is an undeniable downside to this approach which hinders that very same goal. The industry is at a point where we should ask: will these market tenden­cies thwart innovation? Will it become a zero-sum game that can compromise the sector’s goals and, more importantly, is there anything we can do about it?
 
By André Moura, Founder and CEO of Pro-Drone and an EIT InnoEnergy CommUnity Advisory Board Member

Read more ...