Wind energy: “We need stability, reliability and quick political decisions”

Bottlenecks along the entire supply chain continue to be a major challenge for the expansion of wind energy on land and at sea. Silvio Konrad, energy expert at TÜV NORD GROUP, points this out in the latest episode of the “Energieschub” podcast.

The German government has set ambitious expansion targets for onshore and offshore wind energy in Germany: On land, onshore, an additional 5 GW of capacity is to be built in 2023, 8 GW in 2024 and 10 GW per year from 2025. However, the actual expansion in 2022 was only 2.4 GW. The figures for offshore installations at sea are even further apart: the planned expansion offshore is 5 GW in 2023, 8 GW in 2024 and 10 GW per year from 2025. However, only 0.3 GW was actually added in 2022.

The bottlenecks are particularly evident in offshore expansion, explains TÜV NORD energy expert Silvio Konrad: “Due to the greater complexity of the trades and the smaller number of specialized manufacturers, we have even less flexibility here than on land. Along the entire supply chain, from the availability of wind turbines to transport ships and production capacities for the foundations or transformer platforms, it is a major challenge, or sometimes even an almost impossible task, to achieve these regulatory construction targets in the short time frame.” For onshore wind, it also remains difficult to find enough employees with the necessary qualifications in production, for example, or to procure the special lifting and transport equipment required to erect the large turbines in the field.

Silvio Konrad is generally optimistic: “There is a large gap in the actual expansion, but the conditions are basically in place to increase more than in previous years. What we need now in the wind sector is stability and expansion targets that can be planned for the long term in order to bring stability to the supply chain. Many parts of the supply chain are developed and established over years, across continents - you can't change or readjust them overnight.” According to the wind energy expert, the ups and downs of recent years have naturally also weakened the companies: “We must not forget that the low availability of central materials or means of transportation is associated with additional, unplanned costs that put pressure on the margins of the manufacturers and developers of these projects.” He therefore concludes: “We need stability, we need reliability, we need quick political decisions in Germany and in the European Union.”

Find out more in the latest episode of the “Energy Boost” podcast here in the Newsroom (see below)
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