GWEC (Global Wind Energy Council)

“If you’re going to be serious about fighting for climate change in this next decade, you have to be serious about wind power,” says Steve Sawyer, Secretary General for the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC)..

“Initially, the focus on renewable energy was in relation to problems like acid rain, energy security, air pollution etc. It wasn’t until the late 80s, when the climate issue first became prominent and a subject of international debate, that the climate-friendliness of renewable energy was added to the discussion.”

Ex-Greenpeace International Executive Director, Sawyer joined the GWEC in April 2007. As a result, his previous work in representing Greenpeace “in international forums such as the climate negotiations and at the United Nations” took on “a more specific focus on issues related to renewable energy in general and wind energy in particular.”

On June 15th, GWEC, in cooperation with the European Wind Energy Association, held their first Global Wind Energy Day. Sawyer summarises the motivation behind this momentous occasion as “to get as many people engaged in the issue as possible and call on politicians to do the right thing in Copenhagen. A robust and well designed new climate agreement can boost the development of renewable energy and wind power in particular, even more so than the Kyoto Protocol has done.”

The IRJ caught up with Sawyer in Amsterdam to discuss getting “serious about wind power” and the exciting developments taking place both today and in the lead-up to 2020.

“WIND POWER WORKS”
As the GWEC public campaign slogan “Wind Power Works” suggests, Sawyer explains that wind energy is the renewable energy solution we need today.
“Wind power is not the only solution by any means in our fight for climate change, but it is a very important one,” Sawyer says.

“The other renewable technologies are coming along and they will probably make their greatest contribution starting sometime after 2020. It’s the same with other non-renewable solutions that people talk about like nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and all those sorts of things which may or may not play a role in the future. What is important to understand is that they physically cannot make a difference in this next decade. This period, however, is critical, as global emissions need to peak and start to decline before 2020 if we are to avert the worst consequences of climate change. Wind power, on the other hand, is on track to saving up to 10 billon tons of CO2 by 2020.”

There are a number of ways in which wind power stands apart from these other emerging energy solutions.

“In terms of speed of deployment, especially in rapidly developing countries and emerging economies, it’s certainly the fastest way to get new generation capacity on to the grid. It’s also by definition an indigenous resource, so a larger percentage of wind power substantially increases the security of supply in an energy system,” Sawyer explains.

“The other issues of course relate to the long-term costs. Whenever you build a conventional power plant you are, in effect, taking a 30 year bet on the price of oil. Now just the risks associated with those fluctuations are enormous. We’ve seen the devastating economic impact, particularly in developing, but also industrialized, countries of these wild fluctuations in fossil fuel prices over the last couple of years. It makes a huge difference not only in the account balances of the individual company but also in many cases in the account balances of a whole country.”

Cost is of course a key factor, particularly in our current economic climate where shelling out for long-term gain has taken a hit of late. The people holding the purse-strings are looking for a safe bet more so now than ever before.

“With wind energy, you know exactly what your costs are when you build a wind farm. After that, the fuel price is easy to predict: it is zero. This means that for the 20 year or so that your wind turbine operates, you have a stable and predictable price for each kWh it produces. This electricity cost-price stability not only helps in a macro-economic sense but also with the costs associated with running a grid and keeping the prices as low as possible through limiting the demand for peak power, which is always much more expensive than wind,” Sawyer explains.

It is getting into the grid that presents the toughest problem for wind energy to tackle.

GETTING TO GRID INTEGRATION
“The biggest challenge overall is the long, slow process of negotiation with and education of the main grid operators and transmission system operators. These organisations are often stuck in the way they have been doing things for the last hundred years, which is running a relatively simple grid with a few large power plants that produce electricity in a relatively predictable way. It is important to note, though, that there are substantial risks associated with solely relying on a few large power plants - when one goes down, it’s a big deal,” Sawyer says.

He highlights the reticence of many utilities to put up the cash and stresses the need for education and information on the reliability and sustainability of making this initial investment.

“That’s the biggest challenge; convincing the grid system operators that it is worthwhile to spend some time, effort and money on the integration of a large number of variable sources rather than a few large (and inherently intermittent) sources,” Sawyer says.

“The output of wind farms varies, but within a few percentage points, it is predictable 24, 48 or 72 hours in advance. You would never have incidents like scramming of a nuclear power plant like the one we have seen happening in Sweden.”

However in order to get to this stage, Sawyer explains that “getting the human software engaged in the project, rather than having them resist” is the first step.
“With the main grid companies you see the same pattern in Denmark, then in Germany, then the United States and various other places. The big utility companies tend to ignore wind power because it’s not very large and it doesn’t really make much difference to them. Then, when the percentage of wind power in a system gets bigger, they think ‘oh no it’s variable, we don’t know how to manage it, it’s going to cause the grid to become unstable’ and then we have to work with them to show everyone that it’s actually quite the opposite,” he explains.

“Then at some magical point there’s a breakthrough when they say ‘ah, okay, we understand.’ Denmark gets 21 percent of its electricity from wind energy, and the national transmission operator is the biggest champion for moving that to 50 percent. It’s the same in Spain where they have 10 percent from wind and the national electric company is now very keen to have that reach 20, 25 or even 30 percent.”

CHANGES TODAY
At the heart of the emerging growth in offshore wind projects and exemplary goals set by countries such as Denmark and technological advancements in machine sizes and generators, is the people.

“In order for us to totally transform the global energy system into a truly sustainable one, it is true that the major companies have a big role to play, but it’s also something everybody has to be involved in,” Sawyer says.

He explains that in order to make a real difference to CO2 emissions within the power sector - the largest single contributor worldwide – there are three things we need to do.

“The first of course is energy efficiency, the second is fuel switching from coal to gas, and the third is wind power,” Sawyer says.
GWEC continue to fight for highlighting the potential of wind power amongst individuals, utilities and political decision makers. Here in “the year of the climate”, wind power is a serious business.