2024-10-24 12:15:00
During the meeting, eight countries – Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway and Ireland – and the European Commission are expected to reach an agreement on installing around 20,000 wind turbines in the North Sea by 2050. .
China currently accounts for 82% of new wind energy orders, according to analytics firm Wood Mackenzie.
“The EU cannot lose momentum, we have to make sure we choose the right path,” Danish Energy Minister Lars Aagaard told AFP.
In Denmark, which opened its first wind farm in 1991, more than 40% of electricity comes from wind energy.
At the port of Odense, where the discussions are taking place, port director Carsten Aa told AFP that the turbines are being produced for farms across Europe, the US and Philippine markets.
In 2011, the first nacelle – the casing that houses the components needed to operate the wind turbine, including the generator and transmission – was produced by turbine manufacturer Vestas at the Lindo shipyard, used by the global shipping giant Maersk to build its ships until 2009.
Since then, around 1,500 offshore wind turbines have been assembled at the site.
“We are world leaders right now, but the Chinese are knocking on our door,” Aa said.
Announcement
– “Political ambitions” –
Most of the port’s surface area is earmarked for wind energy, and Vestas produces gondolas, masts and foundations, among other things.
The parts are too bulky to be built elsewhere and transported overland before being loaded onto ships and installed at sea.
“If we are to fulfill all political ambitions, we must see even more production in European seaports,” Aa insisted.
He hopes Odense will lead the way in countering Chinese competition.
“We went from an obsolete industrial area to a modern facility and manufacturing plant using old shipyard workers… to produce windmills,” the port director explained.
In France, the port of Nantes Saint-Nazaire recently presented a project to develop a platform for the construction of future offshore wind farms.
The port of Odense is also expanding. The shipyard employed 2,700 people when it closed in 2009, and more than 3,200 now work at the site, which has grown 18% in the past two years.
“What makes us unique is that the area is very large… we have the area around the old shipyard to be able to develop new products and new production halls,” Søren Rask, the head of port security who started the his career as a shipyard blacksmith, he told AFP.
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