Dear Members and Friends of WWEA,
The year 2014 is coming to an end, and we would like to look back with you at this occasion and inform you about WWEA’s main activities, achievements of the past twelve months:
WWEA Community is growing
The number of WWEA members has crossed 600 in the year 2014, we are now proud to have members in 104 countries. Through our member association, we can reach tens of thousands of wind energy organizations, all over the world.
With close to 6000 “followers”, the WWEA Facebook page is also very popular and allows us to reach a group outside our membership, very important to spread our key messages.
Better Policies
WWEA has continued to work with governments and in particular with international organizations – including IRENA, UNEP, UNFCCC, REN21, Green Climate Fund – in order to improve the global frameworks for wind power and renewable energy in general. For this purpose, WWEA is also working in close partnership with non-governmental organizations such as the REN Alliance partners, and most recently within the Global100%RE campaign.
Global100%RE campaign
The Global100%RE campaign, co-founded by WWEA, has made a big difference in the international perception of renewables in general: For the first time, the UN Climate Change conference has officially discussed to completely phase-out fossil fuels by 2050 – this proposal has found support of 100 governments.
The campaign has many international renewable energy associations as partners plus important organizations such as ICLEI, Sierra Club, World Future Council, etc.
All major international environmental NGOs have adopted 100% renewable energy as their top priority, after the campaign was presented to them
WWEA’s side event on 100% renewable energy at the COP20 was branded as a “Lima Climate Action Highlight”.
Several very well know international personalities have agreed to be Ambassadors of the campaign, e.g. David Suzuki, Bill McKibben, Maneka Gandhi, Uli Kelber and more.
Promoting Community Power
WWEA is still continuing to promote decentralized, citizen driven ownership models and underlines the importance of such models at many occasions. Hence this approach has become part of the global renewable energy debate, and has concrete impact on the agenda of e.g. REN21 or IRENA. The focus of the WWEC2014 in Shanghai “Distributed Wind Power”, a very successful event, discussed the approach from a new perspective and contributed to introduce such decentralized concepts to China.
Improving finance for developing countries
WWEA held a conference on “Improving investment conditions for wind energy in developing world” where top representatives from IRENA, Global Environment Facility, UN Climate Secretariat, Green Climate Fund etc. discussed ways how the bottleneck for finance in developing countries can be overcome. WWEA’s proposal of a Global FIT programme has been welcomed and will play a role e.g. in the setup of the Green Climate Fund, as discussed in Lima. A report was published and presented in Lima, with concrete recommendations for the Global FIT programme. Such a programme, if implemented, would be the most important step for renewable energy on the global level since the founding of IRENA.
Study on Pakistan
An important basis for the finance work has been laid in Pakistan: WWEA has conducted a comprehensive study on wind power investment in Pakistan, interviewing all actual and potential wind power investors. The study has allowed to identify the true barriers of wind and allows conclusions also for other developing countries. As main barriers have been identified: grid connection problems, bureaucratic problems, and access to finance.
WWEA Publications
Statistics
WWEA’s regularly publishes statistics, including the WWEA Half-year Report, Annual Report and the biannual Wind Energy International. These figures are often quoted by international media and help to clarify the important role which wind power already has and its huge additional potentials.
WWEA Quarterly Bulletin
As a special service to our members, WWEA is publishing every year four editions of the WWEA Quarterly Bulletin. The Bulletin covers important topics which require in-depth analysis, e.g. policy analysis or market reports.
WWEA Website
The WWEA Website has become a very popular information resource, with in average more than 1000 visitors per day. Recently, the website has been re-deisnged and can offer now new features, including news feeds (from WWEA’s Facebook and twitter accounts and from PR Newswire).
From beginning of 2015 on, WWEA will offer our members new features: A login area will allow access to exclusive information resources in form of a wind library. WWEA members will also be able to manage their own public profile and they will be able to share documents with other WWEA members on this new platform.
WWEA Technology Committee
World Wind Energy Resource Assessment Report
For the first time, WWEA has published a detailed report summarizing the existing wind resource assessment studies. The report concludes that based on the available information, there is a global potential of close to 100 TW, enough to cover the global energy demand. Such data will make it easier for policymakers to understand the full potential of wind power. For the new year, the committee intends to release a global status report about wind power integration.
Small Wind www.small-wind.org
The WWEA Small Wind section has become the global hub for small wind. Important international organizations like IRENA have consequently taken up the topic and are working closely with WWEA. The World Summit for Small Wind, held each year in cooperation with New Energy Husum, has become the leading international meeting point for small wind, and the Small Wind World Report is today the main international reference with regard to small wind statistics. A new initiative has been started in 2014 and will be fully implemented in 2015: The World Small Wind Training and Testing Center will be established in China.
Also our further working groups like the CIS Committee and the Legal Working Group are very active and provide vey important contributions to WWEA’s general activities.
We hope that with this overview, we could give you an idea of busy this year 2014 has been for us. In spite of many challenges, we have been able to achieve a lot – let us use the opportunity to thank all those persons who have contributed to this success: To our board members, to you, our members, to the WWEA staff, to all volunteers who have contributed to our work, and to all our partners around the world.
In 2015, we will continue our work based on the achievements of 2014, and we will also start new initiatives. The main events in 2015 will be the WSSW2015 in March and the WWEC2015 in Jerusalem, where we hope to meet many of you again in person!
We wish you all a peaceful end of this year and a very successful and Happy New Year 2015!
With best regards
He Dexin
President
Stefan Gsänger
Secretary General
World Wind Energy Association