Breaking down barriers to wind energy in Romania and Hungary

To sign up, please contact Paolo Berrino at pb@ewea.org.

Practical information:

Tuesday 6 July 2010 – Bucharest (Romania)
9:30 – 17:00, followed by reception
A press briefing about Wind Barriers and on background information on wind energy will be held at 17:00
Venue: JW Marriott Bucharest Grand Hotel
90, Calea 13 Septembrie Bucharest 5
Keynote speakers:
Iulian Iancu, President Commission for Industries and Services, Chamber of Deputies
Dana Duica, Executive Director, AREE

Thursday 8 July 2010 – Budapest (Hungary)
9:30 – 17:00, followed by reception
Venue: Kempinski Hotel Corvinus,
Erzsébet tér 7, 1051 Budapest
Keynote speakers:
Péter Olajos, Deputy State Secretary, Ministry for National Development and Economy, Hungary
Peter Tóth, Hungarian Wind Energy Association

Over the last year, the WindBarriers project gathered information from national wind energy associations, major utilities and project developers on how long wind farm projects take from start to finish in the EU-27.

It focused on the length of administrative procedures – such as applying for building permits – and on how easily access to the power grid was granted.

The final WindBarriers publication (to be published in summer 2010) will present these results, and advise policy-makers on how to reduce administrative and grid access barriers at EU and national level.

The WINDBARRIERS project aims at gathering up to date and comprehensive information on the administrative and grid access barriers that obstruct the development of wind energy in Europe.

It will quantify lead times for wind turbines projects installed in the last 12 months, both onshore and offshore, across EU 27. The data gathered covers inter alia the timeframe for getting the necessary permits, the costs linked to the process, the number of actions involved, the success and failure rate of the applications etc. The data is obtained from national wind energy associations, major utilities and project developers active in the EU.

The final publication (foreseen summer 2010) will be a toolkit for policy makers to reduce administrative and grid access barriers, at EU and national level. The recommendations will be disseminated by the consortium. This will be done through the organisation of workshops in 5 EU countries, out of which 3 in new Member States.

www.ewea.org