The European wind association, WindEurope, has elected its new Board of Directors, with AEE being one of the three national associations designated to be part of it. This new mandate will last two years.
AEE was eligible to occupy one of the three positions reserved for national associations. The other two countries chosen were Denmark and the United Kingdom.
WindEurope has more than 650 companies from EU Member States, as well as the United Kingdom, Turkey and Norway.
The European wind sector is at the forefront of the reactivation and strengthening of our economy, ensuring the energy that Europe needs and maintaining its industrial and technological leadership on a global level. The European Green Deal, RepowerEU and the recently approved NZIA, together with the European Wind Charter, are the main existing tools that enable economic and industrial resilience and guarantee energy security.
Juan Virgilio Márquez, general director of AEE, after the election, declared: “We need, as a sector, to coordinate our efforts throughout the entire value chain, integrating everyone’s sensitivities, to achieve our objectives and establish a fruitful dialogue with society about the benefits and costs of the energy transition. We firmly believe that the wind sector is a key driver to enable a profound transformation in the European energy structure and a vector of economic competitiveness and social progress.”
Regarding the two years that this new stage lasts, Juan Virgilio Márquez points out: “The next two years will be key to directing efforts towards adequate management of the energy transition: all political agreements, objectives and regulations adopted must be put into practice. We need to install wind power at double the current speed. We must electrify Europe faster as a lever for short-term competitiveness.”
To conclude, the general director of AEE states that it is necessary to ensure the geographical cohesion of the wind industry between northern and southern Europe in all links of the value chain as a key pillar of our strength, and at the same time time to expand it to emerging markets that will also play an important role from a supply chain and economic perspective. “We need to secure the supply chain of European actors, advancing policies that support the principle of “made in and by Europe” (made in Europe and by European actors), and continue betting on mechanisms focused on leading added value and not “just to reduce price.”
Offshore wind energy is one of the bastions of technological leadership in the European wind sector. Floating offshore wind energy is a disruptive solution that will open markets that were previously impossible due to the depth of the waters and Spain occupies a technological leadership position. In these two years, Europe will install new wind farms on its coasts and this will be the period of deployment in new countries.
Another challenge for these two years is the coexistence of wind with other technologies such as Hydrogen. Furthermore, the hybridization of technologies is the future and the need to have a wind base for this is essential. Likewise, the sector must advance the best way to deploy storage in our systems and be able to propose sustainable schemes based on efficiency criteria for the system and consumers.
In Europe, as in Spain, social acceptance is a priority. It is necessary to establish dialogues based on sensitivity towards all local realities, but also on everyone’s co-responsibility in moving towards a decarbonized society. For this reason, we must redouble our efforts to work better, in advance with the territories, seeking a coexistence of positions in the right measure, doing a lot of pedagogy and working with rigor and professionalism.
AEE is committed to continuing to provide added value to the WindEurope Board, associated companies and wind stakeholders as a whole.
