The European Union wants more renewables. European policymakers have always been clear about the vital role of wind energy in delivering Europe’s climate and security objectives. What’s new is that REPowerEU, the EU’s energy policy answer to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, has now made the accelerated expansion of wind energy a top priority for Europe’s security, geopolitical interests and strategic autonomy.

Europe’s overreliance on imported oil and gas had left us vulnerable to Putin’s political manoeuvring. With REPowerEU politicians have woken up to the realisation that only homegrown energy will give Europe control over its energy security and guarantee affordable electricity prices for its citizens and businesses. The changed geopolitical situation after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and last year’s energy crisis has only increased the urgency for wind energy to become the backbone of Europe’s new energy system.

Wind is already 17% of all electricity consumed in Europe today. It will be Europe’s number-one source of electricity before the end of this decade. Today the EU has just over 200 GW of wind energy. The European Commission wants this to grow to 1,300 GW by 2050.

But at this watershed moment, the European wind industry is facing its own crisis. A combination of high input costs, a struggling supply chain, and uncoordinated market interventions across Europe have all taken their toll. Europe’s turbine manufacturers have struggled to make a profit in 2022. Turbine orders have dipped significantly and investments in new wind farms are down by almost 60% year on year. And the EU is still only installing half the new wind capacity it needs to reach its renewables targets.

European policymakers are determined to get things going again and REPowerEU has already brought significant improvements. But now is the time to get serious about the expansion of wind energy in Europe.

It’s time to accelerate permitting. Permitting has historically been the biggest bottleneck to the buildout of wind. 80 GW of wind energy capacity are currently stuck in permitting procedures across Europe. Bureaucratic rules, understaffed permitting authorities, and time-consuming legal appeals are holding new projects back.

REPowerEU has started to tackle this issue. For the first time, the EU recognised renewables as a matter of overriding public interest in its revised Renewable Energy Directive. The EU has also called for a population-based approach to species protection and set out strict deadlines for permitting authorities. It’s now on the Member States to fill these new rules with life – to fix overly complex national permitting processes and to get more wind projects approved.

It’s time to ramp up the supply chain. This includes all aspects of the supply chain – from manufacturing and installation to logistics, maintenance and repair. Today 300,000 people work in more than 250 factories along the wind energy supply chain in Europe. But bad auction design, surging costs for commodities and international shipping and inflation have taken their toll on the supply chain. It’s struggling to make a profit at the worst of all times – just when huge investments are needed to ramp up Europe’s wind energy manufacturing capacities in line with the new REPowerEU targets.

The European Union has understood that the situation is serious. The recently presented EU Green Industrial Plan aims to strengthen Europe’s clean energy manufacturing base and boost its capacity to source critical raw materials. But this Plan falls short of what is needed. Crucially it doesn’t provide adequate funding for investments in optimized and new factories in Europe, new grid connections, offshore wind ports and vessels and a sufficiently skilled workforce. The EU must urgently outline how it plans to finance these critical investments.

It’s time for more green electrons. The European power sector is making steady progress towards zero carbon emissions. As it stands electricity is only around 25% of all the energy that we use in Europe. The rest is the fossil fuels we use to heat the boilers in our houses and to fuel our cars. Direct electrification is the most efficient way for industries and households to decarbonise. The EU wants us to be 75% electric by 2050. The technology is here and can be scaled up quickly.

The EU has picked up on this challenge in its revision of the EU electricity market design – which has eliminated unhelpful revenue caps and encouraged the greater use of corporate Power Purchase Agreements. Without clear and consistent investment signals, investors will not commit the necessary resources, and turn to markets with better investments conditions for renewables, such as the US and Australia.

It’s time to build a grid fit for the future. Year after year we are capturing more wind than ever before. But that energy has nowhere to go if we don’t have the grid infrastructure to deliver it. Europe needs to double the current rate of annual grid investments. And it needs to boost interconnector capacity – both onshore and offshore.

Alongside grids, Europe needs to invest €8.5bn by 2030 to upgrade its port infrastructure and make it ready for the upcoming expansion of offshore wind. The European Union has to ensure that the TEN-T regulation acknowledges the strategic value of offshore wind ports in Europe’s wider transport network planning.

There are many reasons to be optimistic about the future of wind energy in Europe. Today wind energy is among the cheapest forms of electricity generation in Europe. Countries are now collaborating on cross-border offshore wind projects of unprecedented scale. The sector already employs hundreds of thousands of people across the continent, and this number is likely to grow as the industry expands. But the time to act is now if Europe wants to deliver on its REPowerEU targets and ensure that European manufacturers remain global technology leaders.