Official scenarios

For long-term energy scenarios, there are two established authorities. The European Commission has been publishing its long-term energy scenarios since the 1990s. The International Energy Agency (IEA) has published its World Energy Outlook which has a Reference Scenario and recently, Alternative Scenario. EWEA provides wind energy data for Europe.

To date, all targets and future projections for wind energy set by the European Commission, by IEA and by EWEA have been surpassed.

European targets – background

In 1997 the European Commission White Paper on Renewable Sources of Energy set the goal of doubling the share of renewable energy in the EU from 6% to 12% by 2010.

One of the targets of the Commission’s White Paper was to increase the EU electricityproduction from renewable energy sources from 337 TWh in 1995 to 675 TWh in 2010. Within this target, the goal for wind power was for 40,000 MW (40 GW) of installed capacity in 2010. This target was reached in 2005.

The EU Renewables Directive from 2001 that followed the White Paper set national indicative targets for the contribution of electricity from renewable energy sources as a percentage of gross electricity consumption. The overall Community goal is to increase renewables’ share of electricity from 14% in 1997 to 21% in 2010.