Wednesday 29th November 2017

Wind Watch

Wind Watch is published every Monday and Friday.

In the meantime, feel free to look at the latest posts on our blog. This week, we are focusing on WindEurope's annual conference in Amsterdam. Check it out, and if you're there, get in touch.

WindEurope 2017: Ivor Catto on why wind in Europe still needs political support
By Richard Heap

The European wind industry has made great strides in the last year to cut the cost of electricity from wind farms. Yet the future still isn’t certain: policies from the European Union and national governments risk undermining the growth of the sector after 2020.

This has been one of the key messages from Ivor Catto, chief executive of RES Group and chairman of WindEurope, in his opening address at WindEurope’s annual conference in Amsterdam this morning. He highlighted findings from the body’s new report, ‘Local Impact, Global Leadership’, which describes the importance of wind to the European economy. This includes a €36bn contribution to EU GDP in 2016.

He added that the wind sector in the EU now supports 263,000 jobs, generated €8bn of exports outside Europe, and that its tax contributions to governments totalled €4.9bn in 2016. Altogether, wind was a ‘very important part of Europe’s industrial base’.

However, Catto said that companies in the wind sector needed clearer policies from governments across the EU region...