Global Wind Day, as a holiday celebrated every June 15th 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 Wind Europe, whose statistics also say the wind industry employs about 300,000 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 was financed in the EU, and 11 GW was built in 2021, but that is far from the required 32 GW of new capacity per year to reach the European target of a 45% share of RES in 2030.
In the next 5 years, the country’s wind farms are expected to account for 76% of Europe’s total wind farm capacity. 46% of wind farms had project financing, and 54% on a corporate basis.
Judging by the ambitious plans from the Green Agenda and the EU’s RePower program, Europe has high expectations of the wind energy industry. The plan is to increase the installed capacity of wind farms from 190 GW in 2021 to 480 GW by 2030. The biggest hurdle is permitting bottlenecks, which is why the EU is taking steps to remove administrative barriers to get all the necessary permits faster to speed up wind farm construction, as the market capacity is currently building 18 GW of wind farms a year for the next five years.
The share of corporate PPA is growing from year to year as a source of project revenue. In 2021, approximately 10% of new wind farms provided revenue through corporate PPAs. A total of 18.8 GW of wind farms in Europe have concluded corporate PPAs.
However, auctions and premiums through the difference agreement will be the main instrument of support until 2030.
In Serbia, 8 wind farms with a total capacity of 398 MW have been built and make up 4.4% of the capacity of power plants in Serbia. According to a May 2022 report by the RS Energy Agency, wind farm production was a record 1,004 GW in 2021, accounting for 2.8% of Serbia’s total electricity production, but on the other hand, this figure indicates that wind energy potential is still underutilized.
We have a large number of projects in development.
The good news is that PE Elektroprivreda Srbije has started the construction of the Kostolac wind farm.
The Association of RES Serbia points out that for some time now there has been a delay in the implementation of wind energy projects, at a time when every kilowatt of electricity in Serbia is more than needed.
We hope that a mechanism for selecting projects in the connection process will be found soon, so that the transmission system operator is relieved of numerous connection requests that burden the state authorities, even though they do not represent promising projects and serious investors.
We also hope that the issue of balance liability for privileged producers will be regulated very soon, but also the existing bilateral premium system will be reviewed by taking into account the originally proposed concept of a one-sided premium model, and finally review the maximum purchase price for wind farms of € 55.68. / MWh, which is unprofitable according to market prices for wind farm projects in Serbia.