The pressure is certainly on to continue innovating.  In order to meet the EU’s Energy & Climate targets (13% of Belgium’s total energy consumption needs to met by renewable sources by 2020), we will have to reorient our energy system to renewables. That will cost money, on which we need to seek a return. That return will be (as it is already today) in the form of competencies, innovation and expertise that we export to the rest of Europe and indeed the world.  

 

That is why we are particularly excited about the coordinated action by the Flemish government, Agoria’s Renewable Energy Club and the innovation platform Generaties to stimulate innovation in the Flemish renewable energy sector. To showcase what is being planned, Minister Ceysens recently organised a seminar in Brussels where the proposed R&D programmes in smartgrids, photovoltaics, biofuels, hydrogen, geothermics and wind energy were presented.

 

In wind energy our ambition is to build significantly on the strengths we already have. Today we retain a strong global position as suppliers of components (e.g. transformers - Pauwels Trafo, gearboxes - Hansen Transmissions, steel construction - Iemants) and services (e.g. construction - GeoSea, project engineering- 3E, energy supply - Electrabel).   

 

Clearly there is tremendous opportunity to build on these strengths via coordinated investment in R&D, especially since in Flanders we are in the starting blocks of a huge investment in offshore wind energy.  While we are certainly not alone in building offshore wind parks, in Flanders we are going to need to raise the bar significantly given the territory’s distance from shore (30+ km) and water depth. The challenges are significant and pertain to core design concepts (e.g. seabed foundations versus floating platforms) and operational management and maintenance (e.g. safety and access to the turbines).  

 

Hence, the research programme we intend to pursue will focus on our existing competencies as applied in the offshore context. Specifically, the five sub-programmes we propose will look at offshore infrastructure monitoring techniques, component lab-test techniques and remote condition monitoring (to increase component lifespan and improve maintenance strategies).  

 

The opportunity for the Flemish wind sector is clearly tremendous.  In Belgium alone it is projected that our installed wind energy capacity will increase at least ten-fold by 2020 (from 287 MW in 2007 to more than 2,800 MW in 2020 – Emerging Energy Research, European Wind Energy Association).  But as exporters our market is the world: according to Emerging Energy Research, installed capacity globally will top 570,000 MW by 2020 (from 94,000 MW in 2007). We are preparing for this growth accordingly.