About ETIPWind
The European Technology and Innovation Platform on Wind energy (ETIPWind) connects industry, researchers, and policymakers to set Research & Innovation (R&I) priorities and guide EU innovation policy for wind energy.
The platform is supported by the SETIPWind project, funded by Horizon Europe, the EU's funding programme for research & innovation. ETIPWind's latest report, 'From Innovation to Industrial Competitiveness1', analyses public support for wind energy R&I and present recommendations to optimise EU funding and boost the competitiveness of the European wind energy sector.
The role of R&I in Europe's wind energy competitiveness
Wind energy is Europe's flagship clean tech industry – a homegrown success story that is now central to the EU's energy security and decarbonisation strategies. What was once an emerging sector is now an established industry with 231 GW of installed capacity delivering 20% of Europe's electricity and employing over 370,000 people. Wind energy's contribution to EU's Gross Domestic Product exceeds €54 billion2, and investment is growing rapidly: over €11 billion is currently being channelled into new and expanded manufacturing facilities across the continent.
This is the result of decades of strategic policy and sustained public investment, most crucially in R&I. Public R&I funding has been one of the main engines behind the technological advances in European wind energy technology. Innovations that enabled the scale-up of turbines from 450kW machines in 1990 to 15MW machines in 2025. As well as driving down costs, boosting reliability and enhancing overall sustainability.
More than simply a source of clean electricity, wind energy now plays a key role in Europe's broader economic and geopolitical resilience. Indeed, over 99% of the wind turbines installed in Europe are made in Europe. Yet, the wind sector faces critical challenges as it looks to further scale-up to meet the rising societal demand for clean and affordable electricity.
Poor permitting, slow grid build-out, bad auction design, stagnating levels of electrification, and aggressive foreign competition put the European wind sector at a crossroads. The path to 2050 — where wind energy is expected to supply up to 50% of the EU's electricity, with total installed capacity rising to as much as 1,300 GW — demands a new approach to wind R&I. By 2050, wind farms will need to be larger, smarter, more sustainable, and better integrated into the broader energy system. That will require innovation to develop advanced materials, autonomous operation systems, circular designs, and digital tools that ensure better performance and resilience.
Achieving these breakthroughs will require a coordinated, well resourced, and long-term public R&I funding strategy. And this is where the EU must act decisively. As the recent ETIPWind report 'From Innovation to Industrial Competitiveness' highlights, the EU's current approach to wind energy R&I is insufficient, fragmented, and not sufficiently aligned with the needs and urgency that the sector faces. Without a more coherent and robust support strategy Europe risks losing its competitive edge in the global wind energy race.
EU funding support for wind energy R&I
Between 2021 and 2024 R&I investment in the wind energy sector was approximately €6.9 billion — with nearly 75% of that coming from the private sector. The EU allocated €761 million in grants for wind energy R&I across 72 projects. The €761 million is only a small fraction — often less than 3% — of the total budgets available under major funding programmes such as Horizon Europe or the Innovation Fund.
Nearly half of the €761 million in EU grants for wind R&I came from the Innovation Fund, and went to just ten projects. Horizon Europe (including Cluster 4 and Cluster 5), accounted for most of the remainder (Figure 1). Other contributions came from six other programmes offering limited grants to a large number of projects.
The above shows the EU funding landscape is highly fragmented, with wind R&I grants spread across eight different funding programmes, each with its own set of rules, scopes, and application procedures. As a result, the wind energy sector struggles to navigate complex eligibility requirements and application procedures. The lack of a dedicated funding stream for wind innovation blocks long-term visibility, dilutes funding impact, leads to missed opportunities, and ultimately slows down the pace of technological development. This is particularly damaging as the sector has a clear and ambitious R&I strategy for wind in Europe.
Common European strategy for wind R&I funding
Through the Strategic Energy & Technology Plan (SET Plan)3, the European wind R&I community (formed by ETIPWind representing the industry, EERA JP Wind representing the research community, and the IWG Wind representing the Member States) has defined a common R&I strategy set to deliver five core objectives by 2050: keeping the industry healthy and competitive, leveraging digitalisation and automation, making wind the backbone of a climate-neutral energy system, achieving circularity and environmental excellence, and reinforcing a skilled workforce and social support.
1. Remaining healthy and globally competitive will require Europe's wind energy sector to address urgent challenges. While Europe continues to lead in wind turbine manufacturing, meeting the EU's 2030 energy targets require a significant scale-up in production and installations. This calls for innovative manufacturing solutions, such as semi-automated processes and modular designs, alongside with new approaches in transport, installation, and component durability, essential for cost-efficient and rapid deployment.
2. Digitalisation, automation, and AI hold a critical role in optimising wind farm operations. The European wind sector has already made progress in reducing operations and maintenance (O&M) costs through these technologies. But continued R&I is essential to keep pace with rapid technological developments. Priority areas include smart materials, predictive maintenance strategies to extend the lifetime of turbine components. As well as autonomous tools or robots that limit the need for onsite operations, thus increasing workers' safety.
3. As wind energy becomes the backbone of Europe's increasingly electrified energy system, the ability to integrate this growing capacity smoothly into the grid becomes essential. Europe needs major upgrades and expansion of its grid. And significant R&I to improve system flexibility. Priority areas include large-scale demonstrations of grid-forming capabilities, multi-terminal high-voltage direct current systems or even hybrid wind farms and energy islands. Enhanced grid management and modelling tools and storage solutions will need to support and underpin these technologies.
4. Although wind energy is inherently sustainable, the industry aims to go further by becoming fully circular and delivering net-positive environmental impacts by 2050. This involves scaling up recycling technologies – especially for challenging components like blades and permanent magnets – while incorporating recyclable materials into turbine designs. In parallel, more research is needed to scale nature-positive solutions for biodiversity around wind farms, together with harmonised tools to assess cumulative environmental impacts.
5. Finally, the long-term deployment of wind energy will depend on public support and a skilled workforce. By 2030, the industry will need 200,000 additional workers. This calls for coordinated education and training programmes, strong collaboration between academia and industry, and the establishment of lifelong learning culture. At the same time, building and maintaining public support for wind energy will require consistent efforts to engage communities, counter misinformation, and ensure the coexistence of wind farms with other land and marine activities.
The need for a European Fund for Wind Research & Competitiveness Europe's wind energy sector has a clear strategy but lacks a supportive EU funding framework that matches the scale and urgency of the challenges. Increasing EU and national investments in wind energy R&I is essential. To correctly address the R&I priorities, public R&I investment must increase by at least 20%, reaching €1.8 billion between 2025 and 20274.
But more funding alone is not enough. How public funding instruments are structured and the money is delivered matters too. As highlighted in the Draghi report on European competitiveness5, the EU lacks an integrated financing ecosystem to scale and commercialise innovation effectively.
Luckily the EU already has tools in place - early-stage research through the European Research Council, technology development via Horizon Europe, and scale-up support from the Innovation Fund. But these tools lack coordination which leads to gaps and overlaps in the EU funding offer. The Heitor report 'Align, act, accelerate'6 also reinforces the case for a more streamlined, mission-oriented R&I framework.
In response, the SET Plan wind energy community proposes the creation of a European Fund for Wind Research & Competitiveness under the next EU Multiannual Financial Framework (2028–2034) (Figure 2). This Fund would act as a centralised, dedicated mechanism for wind energy R&I—pooling resources from EU institutions, national governments, and private actors. It would support the entire innovation cycle, from fundamental research to industrial deployment. It will have five key elements:
1. A technology-specific public budget for wind energy R&I.
2. Upfront and long-term visibility on that public budget.
3. Co-decision from the industry and research sector on what projects will get funded.
4. Leaner and simpler administrative procedures.
5. A one-stop shop for public funding for the entire innovation lifecycle, including for manufacturing.
The European Fund for Wind Research & Competitiveness will be the framework needed to turn Europe's excellence in wind energy R&I into industrial competitiveness and to deliver technology sovereignty. But it needs to come with a strong EU industrial policy for clean energy technologies, as well as a drastic simplification of the administrative requirements associated with public R&I funding. More details about these recommendations are available in the ETIPWind report 'From Innovation to Industrial competitiveness'.
As the ETIPWind Chair, Adrian Timbus (Vice-President Portfolio and Market strategy, Hitachi Energy), notes: "This report shows wind energy can become the pillar of Europe's industrial competitiveness and energy security agenda. There is great consensus between the political will and the industry and research needs. We need to build on this momentum to ensure wind is a top priority in Europe's industrial strategy and that we invest massively in innovation and industrialisation of wind power solutions. We must strengthen and formalise the collaboration between the wind sector, the European Commission, and the Member States."
1. https://etipwind.eu/wp-content/uploads/files/publications/20250408-Etipwind-report.pdf
2. ETIPWind European wind energy competitiveness report 2025 – to be published.
3. Established in 2007, the SET Plan is the European Commission’s instrument to boost the transition towards a climate-neutral energy system through the development of low-carbon technologies in a fast and cost-competitive way.
4. ETIPWind Strategic R&I Agenda 2025-2027 - https://etipwind.eu/files/file/agendas/231205-ETIPWind-SRIA.pdf
5. The future of European competitiveness -
https://commission.europa.eu/document/download/97e481fd-2dc3-412d-be4c-f152a8232961_en?filename=The%20future%20of%20European%20competitiveness%20 _%20A%20competitiveness%20strategy%20for%20Europe.pdf
6. Align, Act, Accelerate: Research, technology and innovation to boost European competitiveness -
https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/2f9fc221-86bb-11ef-a67d-01aa75ed71a1/language-en