To guarantee precise spending of EU research funds to help achieve the EU 2020 objectives in terms of wind energy production, 140 stakeholders have been selected as members of the EU’s Technology Platform for Wind Energy, supported by the European Commission and the 27 EU Member States.
The General Assembly of the Technology Platform (TPWind) is made up of stakeholders from industry, government, civil society, R&D institutions, finance organisations and the wider power sector, at both Member State and EU level.
Chairman of the Executive Committee is Henning Kruse, head of governmental affairs at Siemens Wind Power. The EU Member States will be represented by a Member States Group, chaired by the UK. An advisory board includes experts from the International Energy Agency and the European Network of Transmission System Operators (ENTSO-E) and other relevant stakeholders from the wind energy, ocean energy, steel, oil & gas and shipping sectors.
The newly selected group of the Technology Platform will coordinate the EU’s wind power research until 2014. It will ensure that EU funds are not double spent on same projects in different EU Member States. The wind energy sector has a budget of Eur6 billion for 2010 to 2020 under the ‘European Wind Initiative’ – a long-term, large-scale programme for EU wind energy R&D. EWI is rooted in the EU Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) now being implemented by EU Institutions, Member States and TPWind.