All posts by : Andrei Moscal

On 20-22 March the ETIPWind project participated in WindEurope’s annual event in Bilbao. The event gathered more than 12,000 participants including policymakers and professionals from all the segments of the wind supply chain. This was the perfect opportunity to present the wind industry’s R&I priorities to the whole wind energy community and to discuss how R&I can support the competitiveness of the European wind energy sector.

ETIPWind’s conference session

The first day of the WindEurope’s conference was marked by the session organised by ETIPWind on a strategic agenda for wind Research & Innovation (R&I). Moderated by Adrian Timbus – ETIPWind Chair, the session addressed the short-term R&I priorities that will be critical to accelerate wind energy deployment in Europe.

Hanif Mashal (CEO, LM Wind Power) introduced the session by tackling the challenge of scaling up to mass production: “In Europe we have been in the forefront of the wind turbine performance, cost-effectiveness, and reliability. There has been a lot of innovation in these fields. We now need to invest in manufacturing, production lines and transport and installation to keep our leadership.”

Hanif was followed by Bernd Biervert (Head of Unit “Clean energy transitions”, DG Research & Innovation) from the European Commission who highlighted the importance of wind energy in the delivery of the EU energy and climate targets: “There is a sense of urgency, we need to act now. We need to speed-up, we need to scale and for that the role of Research & Innovation is very important”.

During the keynote speeches and panel discussions, we also launched the official presentation video of the Strategic Research & Innovation Agenda. 

Hanif Mashal (CEO, LM Wind Power), Federico Gonzalez (Regional CTO, Vestas), Celine Mahieux (VP Power Technology and Innovation Excellence, Shell), and Katherine Dykes (Head of Center, DTEC) then provided their insights on the main R&I priorities during a panel discussion. They emphasised how innovations in manufacturing, turbine design, recycling, digitalisation, or system integration can support the scale-up of the wind industry. And therefore accelerate the mass production of volumes that Europe needs.

The discussion ended with four recommendations from the panellists to the national governments:

• Protect the European wind energy manufacturing footprint;
• Accelerate permitting of wind energy projects, new factories and facilities;
• Improve the supporting / funding mechanisms for wind energy; and
• Accelerate the build-out and the upgrade of grid infrastructures.

ETIPWind Steering Committee meets with the CTOs

Later in the afternoon, ETIPWind’s members of the Steering Committee and ten Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) reunited, mainly to discuss their advocacy strategy and the dissemination of the ETIPWind Strategic R&I Agenda. The main highlights from the meeting are summarised below:

Bernd Biervert shared insights on the next Horizon Europe Work Programme and discussed with the experts the most urgent wind energy Research & Innovation topics to be addressed. This discussion was very timely as the European Commission is currently defining the next calls for proposals of the Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025.

Hanne Wigum (Leader Offshore Wind Concepts at Equinor) and Stephan Barth (Managing Director at ForWind – Center for Wind Energy Research) were elected as new Vice Chairs of the Steering Committee with more than 95% of the votes.  They will help the ETIPWind Chair to guide the platform’s work and to disseminate the wind industry’s R&I priorities in Europe.

Ignacio Marti Perez Marti (EERA JP Wind’s Director) presented the new EERA’s long term research programme. The document was developed in line with ETIPWind’s Strategic R&I Agenda and sets long-term wind energy research needs until 2050. It will soon be published on the EERA’s JP Wind website.

Finally, a dedicated session on EUprojects gathered the industry partners of three projects:

• the BLADES2BUILD project, focusing on blade recycling and demonstration of recycling processes;
• the InterOPERA project, focusing on developing the first European multi-terminal, multi-vendor HVDC system; and
• the ReaLCoE project, focusing on offshore wind energy converters on a 12+MW demonstration turbine.

They shared their experience in EU Projects and highlighted the benefits for the industry to involve in such Consortiums.

The European Technology & Innovation Platform on wind energy (ETIPWind)  released a new Strategic R&I Agenda for the period 2025-2027. It calls for €1.8bn of public investment in wind energy R&I to support the development of a resilient, affordable and sustainable European supply chain.

Picture: ETIPWind – All rights reserved.

On 4 December 38 Chief Technology Officers, wind energy experts and policymakers met in Lommel, Belgium at the ZF Wind Power factory to present the new ETIPWind Strategic R&I Agenda (SRIA). The document is the result of one year of work from more than 190 wind energy industry experts and the research and academia community.

The European Union wants 420 GW of wind energy by 2030, up from 205 GW today. To deliver that Europe needs to strengthen and expand its wind supply chain. That is why the European Commission recently launched the Wind Power Action Plan setting out 15 actions to strengthen Europe’s wind energy industry.

The sector faces major hurdles as it not only looks to scale up and expand its European manufacturing capacity, but also cover the workforce it needs and to meet the expectations on sustainability and coexistence from society at large.

Research & Innovation (R&I) can help to address many of these challenges. The ETIPWind Strategic R&I agenda therefore defines 23 R&I priorities for 2025-2027 which support the following objectives:

• Accelerate the industrialisation and restore the competitiveness of the supply chain;
• Optimise and further digitalise the Operations & Maintenance of the assets;
• Achieve a faster and wider wind energy system integration;
• Develop a sustainable and circular wind energy supply chain;
• Attract a skilled workforce and ensure a happy coexistence with society.

ETIPWind estimates that the total public investment (EU and national) needed to effectively address these priorities would amount to €1.8bn for the 2025-2027 period. Which means that the level of public investments in wind energy R&I needs to double compared to today.  

The SRIA launching event, hosted in one of the factories of the leading gearbox manufacturer ZF Wind Power, can’t come soon enough as the EU prepares for the next calls for projects under HorizonEurope, its flagship research and innovation programme, and it starts discussions on its successor framework programme.

Bernd Biervert,Head of Unit in DG Research & Innovation at European Commission said: “The ETIPWind’s Strategic R&I Agenda is a very timely and valuable input for the European Commission in the co-creation process of the next Horizon Europe Work Programmes”.

Johan Hanssens (Secretary General for Economy, Science & Innovation at the Flemish Ministry of Economy, Innovation, Work, Social Economy and Agriculture) added that “Transformative Innovation towards sustainability relies on close cooperation between policy makers, academia and industry. The proposed ETIPWind’s R&I Agenda will help to align the visions between the actors and to design better policies”.  

Policymaker interventions were followed by a panel discussion with representatives from DTU Wind, LM Wind Power, Ørsted, SAIPEM, Shell and Van Oord. The European Commission closed the event presenting the EU funding tools that can help to support wind energy R&I.

Participants of the event also visited the construction site of the new state-of-the-art ZF Test and Prototype Center which houses a test rig capable to validate complete powertrain systems for both onshore and offshore wind turbines. “Extensive validation is the foundation of ZF’s innovations. Testing allows us to contain the risks inherent to the wind industry and it is essential to receive approval from customers, insurers, and certification agencies in order to launch new designs“, said Dr. Martin Knops, Chief Technology Officer at ZF Wind Power.

With more than seven years of modular gearbox designs and 20 years of integrated powertrain design experience, ZF will be able to produce the next generation of wind turbine powertrains up to 30 MW and accelerate the speed at which the global energy system is being transformed. It demonstrates ZF’s commitment to wind and the strong belief in the future of this renewable energy source.

Photo gallery

For more information, please contact the ETIPWind Secretariat: [email protected]  

One year after their first meeting, the ETIPWind Steering Committee gathered in Amsterdam this week to discuss the future of wind Research & Innovation (R&I).

In parallel with EERA JP Wind’s Innovation Forum, 28 Steering Committee members convened (both in-person and online) with a clear objective: to review a list of 25 R&I priorities for 2025-2027.

These priorities were defined earlier this year by five Working Groups created exclusively to update the ETIPWind’s Strategic R&I Agenda. The Working Groups cover the five main challenges faced by the wind energy sector today, which were identified based on the results of a consultation process organised earlier this year:

• Working Group 1 – Wind energy system integration
• Working Group 2 – Industrialisation, scale-up, and competitiveness
• Working Group 3 – O&M and Digitalisation
• Working Group 4 – Sustainability and Circularity
• Working Group 5 – Skills and Coexistence

The meeting was also an opportunity for the European Commission to share its expectations regarding the ETIPWind’s upcoming work. Enrico Degiorgis (Policy Officer, DG Research & Innovation) affirmed the key role of the ETIPWind’s recommendations in shaping the next Horizon Europe work programs. He also emphasised the importance of coordination with EU Member States to ensure R&I priorities are aligned at the national level.

A vision for wind energy R&I was also discussed during the meeting. Industry and research experts concurred on defining a vision around four key pillars:

• Speed-up: optimisation of integrated designs, digitalisation, transport & logistics, etc.
• Scale-up: manufacturing of large components, supply-chain, standards, etc.
• Expand: locations, grid services, lifetime of assets, etc.
• Enhance: performance, environment, coexistence, etc.

Based on feedback from the Steering Committee, the ETIPWind Working Groups will now refine their list of R&I priorities. The updated Strategic R&I Agenda will be published at the end of November and officially launched during a public event at the beginning of December.

On April 27, alongside WindEurope’s Annual Event in Copenhagen, ETIPWind held its annual meeting with Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) from the wind industry’s leading companies.

11 CTOs (from Acciona, Enercon, Equinor, Hitachi Energy, Iberdrola, Ørsted, RES, Saipem, Shell, ZF Wind Power) joined the ETIPWind Steering Committee to look at future Research and Innovation (R&I) priorities – but also the general state of play for innovation in the wind energy sector.

The meeting featured a memorable speech from Henrik Stiesdal (Founder of Stiesdal A/S) who spoke about how R&I can help accelerate development processes and safeguard European competitiveness (with the automation of manufacturing for example).

Additionally, European Commission representatives (Paula Pinho, Director in DG ENER and Enrico Degiorgis, Policy Officer in DG RTD) stressed how the Green Deal Industrial Plan will help to scale up the manufacturing of clean energy technologies. And how ETIPWind’s recommendations will shape the priorities of the next Horizon Europe work programme.

The CTOs then gave crucial input on the R&I needs of the wind industry in bringing speed and scale, but also the technological challenges that need to be addressed to achieve the EU’s climate and energy targets. They specifically set out the following points:

• Grid & System integration – including grid forming, flexibility, digitalisation, combined solar, wind and battery power plants, long-term storage. And the benefits of these services for the grid.
• Industrialisation – industrial scale for on- and bottom fixed offshore but mainly for floating offshore wind. Logistics of large components, automation of manufacturing, O&M issues.
• Sustainable materials & recycling – including blade recycling and circularity issues.
• Skills and co-existence – including space constraints and labour shortages for grids, transport, installing, permitting, etc.

This was an especially insightful meeting for ETIPWind in light of the update to its Strategic R&I Agenda for 2025-2027, which will be published in November 2023.

For more information, please contact [email protected]

Two weeks ago, ETIPWind submitted its input on the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027 in the framework of the EU consultation on the past, present and future of the European research and innovation programmes 2014-2027.

This consultation was the occasion for ETIPWind to recognise that the EU R&I policies have been instrumental in advancing wind energy technology in Europe, clearly envisioning its significant role in todays and future energy system.

However, the wind supply chain is currently struggling as a consequence of a various factors stemming from the poly-crises Europe is facing including the pandemics, the subsequent supply chain bottlenecks, the high energy prices and the assertive US industrial policies.

This requires an EU-coordinated policy response, including R&I policies to secure Europe’s global technology leadership. There has never been a stronger need for a forward-looking EU industrial R&I policy than today.

The Horizon Europe strategic plan should continue spearheading the fight against climate change and against the loss of biodiversity, as well as securing the supply of sustainable and home-grown energy. But it should respond more flexibly and decisively to the challenges Europe is facing today. This makes the case for more assertive and targeted R&I priorities. ETIPWind views on how to do this are summarised in a position paper.