16 December 2022 Dennis Wettergren

Newsletter ExCo90 out now

Highlights from country and task presentations made during the recent ExCo 90 online meeting.

Chair, Stephan Barth highlights the following:

While the crisis triggered by the pandemic is slowly easing – allowing IEA Wind meetings to take place in person again – the “new” energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine had a noticeable impact on renewable energies. On the online ExCo 90 meeting, the reports shared by ExCo Member Countries showed how the deployment targets in the field of wind energy have increased again, often in combination with a planned acceleration of their implementation.

Yet, supply relationships as well as market systems are experiencing major changes, making adjustments and interventions necessary. At the same time, disrupted supply chains and increasing costs of raw materials and components have challenged the long-standing trend of continuous cost reduction. Finally, market systems are generating unexpectedly high profits for individual energy players, and, for the first time, consideration is being given to skimming off these unplanned windfall profits to be able to reduce the burdens elsewhere.

Therefore, it is crucial that new technical concepts are thought up and tested, successful measures and technologies are optimized even further, and findings and solutions are shared collaboratively as quickly as possible. The reports on planned energy islands or the progress in floating wind are impressive examples of how innovative the ExCo Member Countries are in their efforts.

Equally impressive are the successes and plans of the numerous IEA Wind TCP Tasks, which are increasingly interlinked. The exchange of expertise and the progress built on each other’s results across institutional, national, and continental borders show how unique and valuable the Wind TCP is for accelerating further development of wind energy technology.

The aggregation of knowledge into Recommended Practices continues to be a very successful way of sharing knowledge and experience, with not only each other but also with those who are still in the early stages of using wind energy. Very much in the spirit of the IEA, which is based on the premise that successful energy transitions must be fair and inclusive, offering a helping hand to those in need and ensuring the benefits of the new energy economy are shared widely. operational again, including hybrid meetings.

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