Wind Power

Senior wind industry figures from GWEC, Vestas and Arup come together to discuss what they want policymakers to agree on at the forthcoming COP28 conference later this month.

Starting on 30 November and running for nearly two weeks the 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP28, will bring together world leaders, business and NGOs to discuss the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions caused by fossil fuels - but will global policymakers act decisively?  

This year’s conference, to be held in the United Arab Emirates, will include a global stock take of the progress made since the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, in which countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions and step up the roll out of renewable energy in order to limit the potentially devastating effects of climate change – but how far off-course has the world drifted since the agreement was signed?

In the 19th episode of the Wind Power Podcast; Ben Backwell, chief executive of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), Morten Dyrholm, group senior vice president of communications and public affairs at turbine manufacturer Vestas, and James Theobolds, director at engineering and sustainability consultancy Arup, come together to discuss what the wind industry will be calling for from world leaders at COP28.

Is the stated aim of tripling renewable energy deployment by 2030 possible, let along realistic? How far off course has the world drifted since the Paris Agreement and has the time now come to override objections to the installation of wind power from the public in the face of the existential threat to human life on Earth?

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen and Inga Marsden

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Welcome to the first ‘Wind Power’ news review – hosted by Windpower Monthly’s editor, Claire Warren, and deputy editor, Ian Griggs, with a panel of expert guests.

This time in the news review: Did we dream too big on offshore wind and will inflation force the industry – and policymakers - to recalibrate pricing or deployment targets?

The Contract for Difference mechanism was once seen as the gold standard but is it still fit for purpose in the current inflationary environment, especially after the failed CfD auction in the UK?

And the trouble at Siemens Gamesa. The turbine manufacturer and its parent company face serious challenges but is there a point at which its financial losses become unsustainable - and who is best-placed to lead it back to profitability?

For this episode, we’re joined by our panelists Shashi Barla - director and head of research in renewable energy at the Brinkman Group – and by Will Sheard - director of analysis and due diligence at the consultancy firm K2 Management.

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen.

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Indigenous and first nations communities are being confronted by wind energy developments on their traditional lands, causing legal battles and protests to flare.

Is this an inevitable conflict? Or is there space for a mutually beneficial coexistence? 

Orlando Jenkinson, reporter for Windpower Monthly, discusses these issues across three interviews that make up Episode 18 of the Windpower Podcast. 

In the first, Larry Wright Junior, the executive director of the National Congress for American Indians, describes why the organisation is calling for a pause on offshore wind developments in the US, and how the federal government could help ensure Native American sovereignty is respected to avoid similar disruptions in the future. 

The episode also explores the growing protests against wind farms among the indigenous Sami communities of Norway. Aslak Holmberg, president of the Sami Council, recounts how Sami communities face the loss of their traditional culture as reindeer herders due to the impact of wind farms on their grazing lands, despite winning the support of the Norwegian Supreme Court in a recent decision. 

Situations like these echo the historic oppression of first nations peoples. However, alternative, constructive relationships of mutual benefit can also be imagined. 

Arash Moalemi from the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority, and Tyler Hoffbuhr from developer Avangrid, describe what one such case might look like while discussing the pair’s new joint venture in the southwestern United States. 

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen.

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British wind power pioneer Andrew Garrad has worked in the industry for more than four decades, from the early ‘Wild West’ days of trial and error in the late 1970s.

Now semi-retired, Garrad – who received a pioneer award at the Global Wind Energy Council’s ‘One Terawatt’ party earlier this year - is nonetheless still active in helping communities to harness wind power for themselves. 

In the seventeenth episode of the Wind Power podcast, Ian Griggs, deputy editor of Windpower Monthly, spoke to Garrad about a professional life spent in the wind industry.

The conversation covered his experience of the ‘Wild West’ days of trial and error in the wind industry in the late 1970s, how we arrived at the turbine models seen as the industry-standard today and how long he thinks it will take to install the next global terawatt of wind power.

Garrad also identifies the global markets he thinks are the most exciting today, what national governments should do now to enable wind power and comments on the so-called ‘arms-race’ in turbine sizes.   

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen.

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Global offshore wind deployment is happening in greater volumes, at an increasingly frenetic pace but is the industry becoming a safer place to work in as it matures?

In the sixteenth episode of the Wind Power podcast, Ian Griggs, deputy editor of Windpower Monthly, spoke to Rakesh Maharaj founder of safety & training organization ARMSA Academy, and Anna Hilden, global industry manager for offshore wind at StormGeo, 

According to our expert guests several factors may be working against safer working environment in offshore wind. 

These include a relentless drive by industry players to reduce costs and maintain the profitability of wind projects, an industry awash with innovation in which change is the only constant, and even the structure of multi-level contracts, in which developers seek to transfer the responsibility for risk-mitigation further down the supply chain.

On the face of it, data from the annual G+ offshore wind safety report show the number of incidents which could be of concern is decreasing, even as hours worked in the offshore installation rise sharply, but do these figures show us a complete picture and can the industry players learn anything meaningful from them to enhance their own safety procedures?

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act is expected to double the size of the US market over the next ten years, but is the industry fully equipped to meet all of the benefits on offer?

With clarity of the details in the IRA beginning to emerge, it is clear that it will have a transformative effect on the US market. But in order to fully realise the benefits, turbine firms will need to make massive up-front investments in new manufacturing facilities based in the US to satisfy domestic content requirements or else bring existing facilities out of hibernation to ramp up production. 

The potential rewards are huge for hard-pressed turbine manufacturers which can find the necessary capital to invest but some are better placed than others to do so.

Meanwhile, there are worrying signs that the political consensus on wind power at federal level in the US has begun to unravel and a presidential election is looming on the horizon. What could the outcome mean for the IRA and the companies which are banking on it?

Finally, Europe has proposals but no firm legislation in place to compete with the IRA so does the bloc risk being left behind?

In the fifteenth episode of the Wind Power podcast, Shashi Barla, head of renewables research at Brinckmann Group, and John Begala, policy chief for the US Business Network for Offshore Wind, discuss whether the industry is ready to reap the benefits of the biggest policy driver in the history of the wind. 

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Vic Abate, chief executive of GE Vernova’s onshore wind division as well as GE's chief technology officer, is one of the most senior people working in the wind industry today

A former CEO of GE’s renewable energy division from 2005 to 2013, Abate has been with the company for more than twenty years and he can trace a line in his career from when wind power was in its infancy through to today’s global energy transition.

In the fourteenth episode of the Wind Power podcast - recorded at the recent WindEurope conference in Copenhagen - Ian Griggs, deputy editor of Windpower Monthly, caught up with Abate to ask him how President Biden’s landmark Inflation Reduction Act will affect the fortunes of GE in the coming decade, how the legislation compares with Europe’s proposals and why the company is cutting the number of turbine variants it offers.

This episode was recorded at WindEurope's annual event in Copenhagen, produced by Czarina Deen, and researched by Craig Richard.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The threat of cyber attacks on the wind industry’s remote control systems for turbines and other equipment is all too real and it is growing by the day, with potentially disastrous consequences for companies which do not understand the dangers they face.

As the industry becomes increasingly reliant on remote systems to control the operations of offshore wind farms, the so-called ‘attack surface’ grows with them. Meanwhile, the energy transition - in which Europe attempts to pivots away from Russian fossil fuels - brings with it a higher likelihood of cyber attacks which originate from state actors.

In the thirteenth episode of the Wind Power podcast - recorded at the WindEurope conference in Copenhagen last month - Ian Griggs, deputy editor of Windpower Monthly spoke to three cybersecurity professionals about the nature of the threat and how the wind industry can guard itself against them. 

Boye Tranum, DNV’s director of cybersecurity, Bart Van den Bossche and Tijl Deneut - both cybersecurity experts at Ebo Enterprises - discuss how to assess and counter the threats which face the industry, where responsibility for cybersecurity in companies lies under the new ‘NIS2’ directive, and why people are the weakest link but also the best defence against cyber attacks.

This episode was recorded at the WindEurope Annual Event in Copenhagen and produced by Czarina Deen

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last year Europe as a whole commissioned 19.1GW of new wind power capacity (16.7GW for EU-27 member states), according to WindEurope, up 4% (40% for the EU-27 states) from the previous year. That takes Europe’s operational wind power capacity past the 250GW mark but still falls well short of what’s needed to hit climate and energy goals.

From the perennial problem of long waits for permits and grid connections through to nimbyism, ever-increasing turbine sizes and the chicken-and-egg situation that is holding the roll-out of wind power back, there are plenty of issues keeping the industry awake at night. But, as the guests on our podcast point out, this is an industry that is willing - and able - to rise to the challenge. 

The technology is there and wind, given the right conditions, can be built at speed.

Matilda Afzelius, CEO for the Nordics at RES, Alexander Fløtre, who heads up offshore wind research at Rystad Energy, Jon Salazar, founder and CEO at Gazelle Wind Power, Joachim Koefoed, who heads up public affairs across Europe for Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Tom Walker, head of onshore wind at Statkraft in the UK, and Eric Jan Bijvank, director Europe & Africa at Fugro join Windpower Monthly editor Claire Warren to discuss some of the challenges - and how we might address them.

To listen, simply click on the 'play' button in the graphic above, or follow and download Wind Power on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms.

This episode was recorded at the WindEurope Annual Event in Copenhagen and produced by Czarina Deen.

Further reading

'EU must restore confidence' as 2022 additions lag climate targets – WindEurope

EU's Net Zero Industry Act 'falls short' of driving 36GW annual wind turbine production – WindEurope

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Speaking ahead of the start of the WindEurope conference in Copenhagen next Tuesday (25 April) Sven Utermöhlen - chair of the trade group and chief executive of offshore wind for RWE - discusses the EU’s package of measures to stimulate the wind industry.

Last month, the European Commission proposed a package of measures which, if enacted, could help boost the fortunes of the wind industry in member states as well as speeding up the roll out of renewable energy.

They include a ‘Net Zero industry act’, which could boost member states’ permitting capacity and reform auction criteria for new wind farms, they also include ‘Electricity market reforms’ which could expand the use of corporate power purchase agreements across the continent, and a ‘critical raw materials act’ which seeks to secure Europe’s supply of the essential components the wind industry needs for future expansion.

In the eleventh episode of the Wind Power podcast, Ian Griggs, deputy editor of Windpower Monthly, talked to Utermöhlen about whether the EU’s package is sufficient to help the industry, how it compares with the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) policy in the US policy and where the EU could go further and faster.

The conversation also touched on what skills the wind industry needs now and how to plug the skills gap effectively.

To listen, simply click on the 'play' button in the graphic above, or follow and download Wind Power on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other platforms.

This episode was produced by Czarina Deen and researched by Craig Richard and Orlando Jenkinson

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.