A dedicated voice for Technology and Policy R&D, speaking for the wind energy sector and its stakeholders.

Objectives

This will help to achieve EU objectives in terms of renewable electricity production. The platform will develop coherent recommendations, detailing specific tasks, approaches, participants and the necessary infrastructure, in the context of private R&D, as well as EU and Member State Programmes, such as FP7. TPWind will also assess the overall funding available to carry out this work, from public and private sources.

Through its Strategic Research Agenda, TPWind will encourage the industry to intensify its research efforts in line with, or exceeding, the overall Lisbon objectives, while increasing the focus on the long term view, and it will encourage the uptake of long term research findings in the development of new prototypes.

Through the Market Deployment Strategy, Member States, EU institutions and the industry will be able to tailor policy development against the changing needs of the technology as it matures.

The structure of TPWind therefore comprises:

• Technology Research and Development Working Groups responsible for building the Strategic Research Agenda,
• Policy / Market Development Working Groups responsible for building the Market Development Strategy.

For each group, a preliminary work programme is available online at: http://www.windplatform.eu. This work programme is focused on areas of main interest for reducing the costs of Wind Energy.

One of the key concerns of the platform is the assessment and procurement of sufficient funds to pay for the innovation and R&D tasks it identifies.

The Finance Working Group explores and quantifies the complete range of opportunities for research funding, which can then be matched to the tasks as prioritised by the Steering Committee. It endeavours to build up the role of private industry in collaborative R&D, and to identify new sources of investment in the public sector through, for example, the Structural Funds.

This Group comprises the relevant ministries and energy agencies of Member States that wish to participate. This group is fundamental to the success of TPWind. It provides an opportunity to tailor national R&D activities to complement EU activities, and vice versa, and to develop synergies.

It is also an opportunity for Member States to collaborate in pushing forward some of the short term operational issues facing wind energy, such as those described in the Copenhagen Declaration.

The Steering Committee is the decision-making body and executive arm of the Technology Platform. It directs all activities and is accountable for:

• Defining roles and responsibilities within the platform,
• Outlining operations compliance with the Platform mission and related activities,
• Approval and launch of activities, including objectives, timing and scope,
• Follow-up activities and approval of deliverables,
• Final assessment of key deliverables (Strategic Research Agenda and Market Development Strategy) with support from the Secretariat, based on Working group reports.

The Secretariat of the Wind Energy Technology Platform optimises the activities of the Platform. It manages the calls for selecting the members of the high-level Member States Mirror Group, Working Groups and Financing Group. It also provides logistical, functional and organisational support to the Technology Platform groups, and, where appropriate, will provide intellectual input to their discussions, particularly with regard to the fine-tuning of its Action Plans: the Market Development Strategy and the Strategic Research Agenda.