We’ve made a special phone call with WindEurope Executive Director Giles Dickson. Dickson made spectacular statements on Turkey, while evaluating World markets and the effects of the pandemic situation.

We know well about you as director of Wind Europe, a well-known organisation in the world. Can you tell us about your organisation for some of our readers who don’t know the organisation yet?

WindEurope is the voice of the wind industry, promoting wind power in Europe and worldwide. WindEurope actively coordinates international policy, communications, research and analysis. We also provide various services to support members’ requirements and needs in order to further their development, offering the best networking and learning opportunities in the sector.

The pandemic situation of Covid-19 virus has effected the whole world and is likely to change the manufacturing and capital relations very radically. Energy seems to be the sector which will lead this change. What’s the current situation in the context of wind energy in Europe.

Most of the factory sites remain open. But 19 are closed. And they are in Spain and Italy. That includes blades, gearboxes and transformers.  Now, that’s the position in our factories. And what about the operation existing in wind farms? So, operation and maintenance services continue. Obviously, we’re respecting the latest government guideline.

Is there an expectation of a time schedule for the normalisation of the industry?

For the operation and maintenance of the wind farms around Europe, governments recognise that this is an essential service. And therefore, they have allowed us to continue to deploy workers to wind farms for operation and maintenance. And we’re really respecting for the latest health and safety guideline. Having said that the operation and maintenance activity is suffering from the logistical challenges to get the right people to right places. And this involves workers, lifting cranes. So, there are some logistical challenges around operation and maintenance. Now, where we see a significant impact is the construction of new wind farms. So the construction of wind farms is not considered to be an essential service.

So, they are generally stopped?

It is not stopped, but it’s impacted by restrictions of the movement of the goods and the movement of people. But you have to remember that also, unlike Turkey, which is one large territory but only one single country, Europe has many countries with national borders between them. And construction activity includes movement of goods, components and borders across national borders. And that is significantly constrained all over Europe at the moment. 

Because of many different and separate legislations and restrictions applying.

That’s right. The restrictions of travel and mobility in the countries so far. They include good delivery for new construction projects. They’ll be heavily disrupted. We expect a significant drop in new wind farms completion in 2020.

The crucial point for governments in Europe to understand is the drop in wind farm projects and therefore they must give wind farm developers longer time for developing projects. And they must expand the deadlines for the commissioning of wind farms.

Can we tell about an average delay of time and extension of the projects?

I’ll give you some examples. Poland has granted additional time on completion of the product. France also said there will be an addition for the project. They haven’t announced how long it will be yet. But they’ve said “We understand every will to extend the deadline”. Greece, your neighbour, has extended the comissionary deadline by 6 months for the projects supposed to be completed by June this year. Spain, where there are wind farms with completion deadline around March, said “We suspend the deadline”. Germany have also extended the deadlines, so have Austria. But I understand Turkish government has not put any extension for the projects that are due to on 31st of December, for the commission very large number of projects currently under construction. 

Yes, actually that’s the situation in Turkey, about the projects. No extension or interruptions came to the projects. There has been put some restrictions, but they don’t include the projects. The business and the projects continue. There has been some restrictions for some age intervals, some shop businesses and mask advisory at shops.

Ok, very good that the projects are continuing. But of course, there will be some constraints, everywhere, in every country. The Europen Wind Industry Industry that has been heavily involved in the development of these projects in Turkey, is extremely surprised that Turkish government has not yet extended the deadlines for completion of these projects. We strongly urge Turkish government to follow the example of every other governments in Europe. And we have to extend the deadline. Every government that we have asked a deadline extension has given us a deadline extension.

And Turkish government has not.

And it’s extremely depriving that Turkish government has not. It would be catastrophic that Turkish government has not extended the deadline. We strongly urge Turkish government to follow the example of governments in mainland Europe on this issue. This is a plain common fact. 

Other than the extensions of deadlines for the projects, what are your evaluations for Turkish market?

As Wind Europe, for a very long time, we have been very positive about Turkish wind energy. We, first of all, are very clear there is promissing potential for the very significant build-out in a functional way in Turkey. We also believe in the potential for off-shore wind in Turkey. The Turkish market can be a very helpful support in promoting wind energy globally and accelerating a transition to renewable energies. We greatly welcome the political support for the extension of European wind in Turkey. If they do not follow the example of other countries, it will significantly undermine the profiency of European wind industry in Turkish market.

On the economical aspects, will there be a slide to renewable energy, following the pandemic situation all over the world?

Look, in the short time, there are challenges and there are issues we have discussed. In the long term, the pandemic will  strengthen the understanding of governments that renewable energy transmissions are far more important. First of all, acceleration of energy transmission is a very good way of creating jobs in Europe and that route is a very good way of economic recovery. And renewables are job-rich, they are shovel-ready and developed quickly and therefore excellent source for quick revenue. And some people say what about the impact of the drop in oil prices? More people see that the oil cap-market is full of volatility in prices. And what charms is cheap stable prices, so wind energy now offers.

And volatility in oil prices, will it impact some communities and some other balance groups. Especially some financial groups, depending on oil importing-exporting; the volatility will effect demands in very unpredictable ways. And perhaps in the near future, some of these financial groups will disappear from world economy. What’s the reasonability of this argument?

The impact on different governments around the World will be very significant on oil exporting countries clearly. Export revenue and its impacts on government revenue will be effected. The oil importing countries will earn less than we used to. Which we see here is volatility, which is nobody’s interest. And it brings great opportunities for local indigenous wind plants.

There is a very active women’s platform named TWRE Turkish Women in Renewable Energy. This platform makes spectacular efforts for gender equality and women recruitment in energy industry. Do you know about the group which consists of industry professionals? Is there a similar structure under Wind Europe? What would you like to tell about gender equality and recruitment in the industry?

The European Commission has made a clear commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050. The EU Green Deal is one of the most ambitious transition projects in modern history. It will create new and diverse job opportunities for all kinds of educational backgrounds…engineering, spatial planning, grid management, research and development are just a few of them. This project requires the most talented and ambitious minds in Europe – independent of gender, race and nationality. I encourage all young women to get involved and I am happy to see platforms actively promoting women to work in wind.

Thank you for the interview and for your time. We’ve been much more than glad. 

I’ve been much delighted for the interview, very nice to talk to you. Thank you.