OREANDA-NEWS. Wind energy is the renewable energy technology expected to provide the largest contribution to the EU's 2020 renewable energy targets and beyond - that is the message from the European Wind Energy Conference in Paris taking place from 17-20 November, attended by Maro? ?ef?ovi?, European Commission Vice-President for Energy Union.

The EU currently has around 140 GW of wind power, including just over 13 GW of offshore wind power capacity, which could rise to 210 GW by 2020 and 350 GW by 2030. These levels of capacity would cover 14% of the EU's electricity demand in 2020 and up to 24% of demand in 2030, according to the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA).

With its renewable energy targets for both 2020 and 2030, the European Commission has created the right political framework to boost renewables further, and it is working on legislative proposals for a new renewables directive to ensure target achievement post-2020 and on market design to ensure the integration of renewables into the energy market.

Meanwhile, the cost of onshore wind power is already competitive with other sources of electricity in many countries, and the potential of offshore wind power is very high – but the sector needs to bring down costs. The North Sea in particular is well suited to the development of offshore wind energy and will be key in increasing the EU's energy security and decarbonising the economy.