On 17 October, over 70 participants from the wind industry, research, and EU institutions gathered in Brussels and online for a public workshop. The workshop aimed mainly at defining the long-term R&I priorities for the wind industry but it also focused on how to implement those R&I topics and set the groundwork for a long-term roadmap to keep wind energy innovation at the heart of the EU’s policy agenda.
Jacek Truszczynski (Deputy Head of Unit, DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs) opened the event outlining the challenges the wind sector is facing and the solutions that the European Commission brought to support the competitiveness of the industry including the Net Zero Industry Act, the EIB support and access to finance, more flexible state aid rules, etc. He also highlighted the key role of Research & Innovation in the Clean Industrial Deal, that the European Commission is currently preparing, and in the EU Competitiveness Fund that will be released next year. “We will need your ideas on what should be supported, but most importantly on how we should do it. We need to do things differently when it comes to R&I support” said Jacek Truszczynski.
Participants in person and online then agreed on the long-term targets to be achieved by 2050 and the main R&I priorities that need to be implemented in this perspective. Participants agreed that by 2050:
- The European wind industry should be healthy and competitive at the global scale.
- The European industry should have harnessed the potential of digitalisation, automation with high cybersecurity standards.
- Wind should be the backbone of a climate-neutral energy system centred around electrification.
- Wind farms should be fully recyclable and have a positive environmental impact.
- Society should actively support and recognise wind energy as indispensable for European prosperity and climate-neutrality.
The discussion then focused on the actions required to implement the long-term R&I priorities defined by the ETIPWind and EERA experts. One of the key ideas mentioned was the establishment of a long-term partnership for wind energy R&I where all stakeholders (EU, Member States, industry and research) would commit around a common R&I agenda. Participants agreed that this partnership would help accelerating R&I for wind energy and therefore support the competitiveness of the European wind supply chain.
The last part of the workshop was dedicated to the existing policies and funding mechanisms. Representatives from the European Commission – Davide Amato, DG Research & Innovation, Joao Serrano Gomes, DG Climate Action, and Andrea Hercsuth, DG Energy – outlined the opportunities for wind in Horizon Europe, the Innovation Fund, and the Net Zero Industry Act, and engaged in a question round with participants.
The workshop’s outcomes will feed into the ETIPWind Roadmap which will be developed by the ETIPWind experts with expected publication in April 2025.