Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), stated that the Agency supports an EU renewable energy target for 2030.
Van der Hoeven said this at the European Wind Energy Association’s 2014 annual event in Barcelona, explaining that this would reduce policy risk and so “bring down costs and put us on the path we want to be on”.
However, in the absence of national targets a governance system to ensure countries contribute is necessary, she added, also emphasising the importance of power market integration.
Continuing the discussion on the power system, Portugal’s secretary of state for energy Artur Trindade, another keynote speaker at the session, said his country at times gets up to 90% of its power from wind energy. What do you think happens? He asked the audience. The answer is “nothing!” No-one notices, nothing changes, he stated: there are high levels of wind energy regularly in the Portuguese power system without an issue.
Enercon Managing Director and EWEA 2014 conference chair Hans-Dieter Kettwig referred to the dangerous regulatory instability for renewables in the EWEA 2014 host country, Spain, and called on the Spanish government to “break down the walls in your land and in your head” and restore a stable framework.
European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) president Andrew Garrad called for renewable energy targets for 2030 and stressed the energy security wind energy brings. “Putin cannot turn off the wind energy tap” he said. EWEA launched a new report looking at how wind energy can avoid fossil fuel imports today.
Press release, March 12, 2014; Image: EWEA