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Chapter 1: Scenarios for the EU-27

While EWEA is confident that its predictions for wind power capacity in the EU to 2010 will be met, there is uncertainty about the projections for 2020 and 2030. The likelihood of a significant market for offshore wind power has been pushed beyond the 2010 timeframe, predominantly as a result of strong onshore wind market growth in the USA, China and India in recent years. Much also depends on the future EU regulatory framework for the period after 2010.

In 2008, EWEA published three scenarios – low, reference and high – for the development of wind energy up to 2030.

Fig 1.1: EWEA’s three wind power scenarios (in GW), EWEA

Much of the development over the coming two decades will depend on the evolution of the offshore market, over which there is currently some uncertainty. In December 2007, the European Commission announced a Communication on Offshore Wind Energy. As mentioned, EWEA’s reference scenario assumes 180 GW of installed wind energy capacity in 2020 and 300 GW in 2030. The EU will have 350 GW (including 150 GW offshore) in the high scenario and 200 GW (including 40 GW offshore) in the low scenario in 2030.

The 56.5 GW of installed capacity in the EU-27 by the end of 2007 produces, in a normal wind year, 119 TWh of electricity, enough to meet 3.7% of EU electricity demand.

In terms of wind power’s electricity production and its share of total EU power demand, there are large differences between the three scenarios. Much also depends on whether total electricity demand in the EU increases according to the European Commission’s business as usual (BAU) scenario or stabilises according to its energy efficiency scenario (EFF).

As can be seen from Table 1.1, wind power will produce between 176 TWh (low scenario) and 179 TWh (high scenario) in 2010, between 361 TWh and 556 TWh in 2020, and between 571 TWh and 1,104 TWh in 2030.

Table 1.2 shows that in EWEA’s reference scenario, wind energy meets between 5% (BAU) and 5.2% (EFF) of EU electricity demand in 2010, between 11.6% and 14.3% in 2020, and between 20.8% and 28.2% in 2030, depending on how overall electricity consumption develops in the EU between now and 2030.

The calculations in the following sections are based on EWEA’s reference scenario and the European Commission’s BAU scenario for electricity consumption.

Table 1.1:Electricity production (in TWh) for EWEA’s three scenarios

Table 1.2: Share of EU electricity demand from wind power, for EWEA’s three scenarios and the two EC projections for the electricity demand

It is assumed that the average capacity factor of all wind turbines in the EU will increase from 24% in 2007 to 25.3% in 2010 and 30.3% in 2020. The increase will be due to better design, exploiting the resources in more windy areas of Europe, technology improvements and a larger share of offshore wind. In Germany, average capacity factors will only start increasing if older turbines start being replaced, and offshore wind power takes off. It should be noted that for a technology that makes use of a free resource, a high capacity factor is not a goal in itself. It is not technically problematic to increase capacity factors, but doing so affects grid integration, modelling and generation costs.