Global Wind Day, as a holiday that is celebrated every June 15 in the world, is an exceptional opportunity to point out the importance of wind energy in the goals of achieving carbon neutrality, and energy security and independence of each country.
Europe gets 16 percent of its electricity from wind energy, according to data from Wind Europe, whose statistics also say that the wind energy industry employs about 300 thousand people in Europe. In Europe, 41.4 billion euros have been invested in the construction of 24.6 GW of new wind farms in 2021. Of that, 19 GW were financed in the EU, and 11 GW were built in 2021, but even that is far from the required 32 GW of new capacity per year to reach the European target of a 45% RES share in 2030.
In the next 5 years, onshore wind farms are expected to account for 76% of the total wind farm capacity in Europe. 46% of wind farms had project financing, and 54% on a corporate basis.
Judging by the ambitious plans from the Green Agenda and the RePower EU program, Europe has high expectations for the wind energy industry. The plan is to increase the installed capacity of wind power plants from 190 GW in 2021 to 480 GW by 2030. The biggest obstacle is permitting bottlenecks, which is why the EU is taking measures to remove administrative obstacles for faster obtaining of all necessary permits to speed up the construction of wind farms, because the current market capacity is to build 18 GW of wind farms per year for the next five years.
The share of corporate PPA is growing year by year as a source of project revenue. In 2021, approximately 10% of new wind farms have secured revenue through a corporate PPA. A total of 18.8 GW of wind farms in Europe have concluded corporate PPAs.
However, auctions and premiums through the contract for difference will be the main instrument of support until 2030.
Eight wind power plants with a total capacity of 398 MW have been built in Serbia and make up 4.4% of the power plant capacity in Serbia. According to the report of the Energy Agency of the RS from May 2022, the production of wind power plants amounted to a record 1,004 GW in 2021 and accounted for 2.8% of the total production of electricity in Serbia, but on the other hand, this data indicates that the potential of wind energy is still underutilized.
We have many projects under development.
The good news is that Elektroprivreda Srbije has started the construction of the Kostolac wind farm.
Association RES Serbia points out that for some time there has been a standstill in the implementation of wind energy projects at a time when every kW of electricity in Serbia is more than needed.
We hope that a project selection mechanism in the connection process will soon be found to relieve the transmission system operator of numerous requests for connection that burden state authorities even though they do not represent promising projects and serious investors. We also hope that the issue of balancing responsibility for privileged producers will be regulated very soon, but also that the existing system of two-sided premiums will be reviewed by taking into account the initially proposed concept of a one-sided premium model, and finally, the maximum purchase price for wind farms of €55.68 will be reviewed /MWh, which is unprofitable according to market prices for wind power projects in Serbia.