WindEurope is warning that the EU Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA) needs strengthening, otherwise wind farms will be built with turbines manufactured outside of Europe.
There are over 250 factories around the continent making turbines and components, it said, but there are already bottlenecks in Europe’s wind supply chain.
Offshore foundation manufacturers and installation vessels are fully booked for several years and the wind industry is having to buy power cables, gearboxes and even steel towers from China, it added.
“We’re building a few new factories but not enough for the massive expansion of wind energy that Europe now needs,” WindEurope said. The rapid expansion needed in Europe’s wind and other clean energy supply chains requires public policy and public financial support, it said.
While the EU’s Green Deal Industrial Plan supports this, the NZIA at the heart of the Plan, falls a long way short, the association argues. The European Parliament and EU Member States in the Council are now amending the NZIA text.A key thing to strengthen are the non-price criteria in renewables auctions, WindEurope said. The association wants auctions to give extra points to developers which offer European technology.
It also argues that cybersecurity and due diligence so that equipment is not sourced from countries with poor human rights records or less stringent labour practices.
WindEurope also wants NZIA to drop the idea that you don’t need to apply non-price criteria whenever costs go up by 10% and argues that it is impossible to apply in practice and defeats the purpose for having non-price criteria in the first place.
WindEurope chief executive Giles Dickson (pictured) said: “Europe wants a green industrial policy. It wants renewables to be made in Europe. But it’s failing on the policies that will actually deliver that.
“The Net-Zero Industry Act needs beefing up. Public money has to support the expansion of green supply chains, as it does elsewhere in the world.
“Otherwise the EU Green Deal will be manufactured outside of Europe, and it will simply swap its dependency on Russian gas for one on Chinese clean energy equipment.
“Our existing green supply chains bring jobs, growth and investment to thousands of communities. We’ve got to wake up and preserve that AND build on it. NZIA is our chance. We mustn’t blow it.”