Jul 5 2010
Frost & Sullivan have analyzed the prospects of the growth of the wind energy sector in Europe and have found opportunities developing in three areas. These areas are peripheral markets, value chain components and new geographical areas.
The EU 2020 renewable targets set for wind energy have been instrumental in improving wind energy generation in the continent both in offshore and onshore markets.
Denmark, Germany, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, and the UK are the leading producers of wind energy in Europe. However countries like Ireland, Sweden and Greece are offering a lot of potential for the growth of wind energy sector. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe including Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Turkey, and the Czech Republic are the emerging future markets.
The offshore wind sector, especially in the UK and Germany, is emerging as a strong industry as the wind generated is of a higher production capacity due to lack of intrusions. The increase in offshore wind speed (9-10m/sec compared to 7m/sec on land), double load factors, large scale of projects (greater than 100 MW) are other factors that improve the contribution of offshore energy to meeting renewable energy targets set by the EU.
Denmark, Germany, and the Netherlands are looking at refurbishing their existing wind generation capacities by strengthening their turbines to improve capacity and performance.
The complexity of value-chain components, mainly bearings and gear boxes, have also resulted in better production and increase in the research and development of components of investments in improving blade design and other production aspects of the wind energy industry.
Construction and the O&M (Operation and Management) markets in both onshore and offshore wind production has seen a rapid rise in the development of ports and increase in supply of installation vehicles. Frost & Sullivan predicts the above factors to be the main reasons for the emergence of a rapidly growing European Wind Energy Sector after the global economic turndown.