Years of waiting to get a permit to connect to the grid is holding back gigawatts in wind power capacity in Europe, Reuters has reported, citing WindEurope, the industry lobby group.
"The system is clogged up - and holding back hundreds of gigawatts of wind farms," WindEurope chief executive Giles Dickson said.
There are currently over 500 GW in new wind power capacity that is awaiting the green light to connect to the grid across Europe but regulators are not in a hurry to grant that green light. The situation is most difficult in Italy and the UK, where there are over 100 GW in capacity each that are awaiting permission to connect to the grid. Gigawatts of wind power capacity are also waiting for connection permits in Germany, Ireland, France, Poland, and Spain.
Permitting is one of the problems plaguing the industry in Europe, along with higher raw material costs, higher borrowing costs because of elevated interest rates, and government subsidies that, as a result of raw material inflation, have become often insufficient to motivate growth.
Recently, WindEurope complained about negative bidding at two offshore wind auctions in Germany and the Netherlands, saying that "This puts unnecessary additional pressure on offshore wind developers - with adverse consequences for the wider wind energy supply chain and Europe's electricity consumers."
Negative bidding involves wind installation developers offering money for the right to build an installation where the highest bid wins. According to WindEurope this is a negative for developers because it adds to their total costs while the return on that investment depends entirely on government subsidy schemes and wholesale electricity prices.
Europe installed 18.3 gigawatts of new wind power capacity in 2023, of which the EU-27 installed 16.2 GW, a record amount but only half of what it should be building to meet its 2030 climate and energy targets.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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