Winds of opportunity – and challenge – blow around the world

The imperatives and challenges of growth in difficult economic conditions around the world was a hot topic of conversation at the recent Canadian Wind Energy Association (CanWEA) conference in Toronto. Panelists from the United States, Europe and Canada spoke about global wind industry trends in their jurisdictions to a packed audience on the first full day of the conference.

Denise Bode, head of American Wind Energy Association drew on the strong leadership of President Obama in talking about the advance of wind energy in the States. However, Bode also said that the ability of the Department of Energy to implement federal energy policy through federal stimulus money across the country is being hampered by state-level fragmentation. The clear implication was that Canada’s challenges in establishing national energy policies is echoed south of the border.  So “hang in there”, in other words.

Similarly, Christian Kjaer, head of the European Wind Energy Association spoke of challenges stemming from trying to drive supra-national energy policy in a region of 27 member states, all of whom have policy levers over and considerable interests in the development of energy in the European Union.

Germany, for example, is a global leader in solar power and Denmark a global wind leader. Both countries have policies contributing to that leadership. At the same time, other EU-based countries lag in renewable energy, comparatively speaking, but are leaders in – or at least more reliable on – fossil fuels. Among other things, this contributes to a European hot house of technological innovation in energy amidst increased citizen expectations. Not surprisingly, Europeans look eagerly at Canada in terms of wind given the ample natural resources here and the lack of domestic industry (at least for turbines and blades).

The next CanWEA conference will be held in Montreal from October 31 to November 3, 2010.