Group items tagged

43% of all new electricity generating capacity built in the European Union last year was wind energy, exceeding all other technologies including gas, coal and nuclear power.

20 wind turbines were installed for every working day of 2008. By the end of the year, a total of 160,000 workers were employed directly and indirectly in the sector, which saw investments of about €11 billion in the EU

Wind energy is an example of an intelligent investment that puts EU citizens’ money to work in their own economies rather than transferring it to a handful of fuel-exporting nations

As a result of these policies, we can expect a gradual decrease in oil consumption in the EU over the coming years, and the beginning of the switch to cleaner more efficient, and often renewable transport.

the era of cheap energy is over, and at a time when, in any event, we have an absolute obligation to future generations to move to clean, carbon free energy sources for heat, power and transport due to climate change. This is the challenge facing us.

draft directive guaranteeing 20% renewables

Subsidies are needed because solar is still more expensive than conventional power sources like coal, but costs are dropping by around 5 percent a year and "grid parity", without subsidies, is already a reality in parts of California. Very sunny countries could reach that breakeven in five years or so, and even cloudy Britain by 2020. "At that point you can expect pretty much unbounded growth," General Electric Co's Chief Engineer Jim Lyons told the Jefferies conference in London on Thursday, referring to price parity in sunny parts of the United States by around 2015.

As a case study of a successful approach, let’s take a look at what Spain has been able to accomplish. Spain has tackled its development of renewable energy sources aggressively. With 11,615 megawatts (MW) of installed wind capacity at the end of last year, Spain is second in the world to Germany in capacity (and about on par with the United States). The 23,372,000 MWh generated in 2006 provided just over 8.5% of Spain’s electricity: only Denmark boasts a higher percentage.