Wind power plants in 2013: wind is the most progressive energy source in Europe - Czech goes against the tide (time) towards nuclear power and coal

27th February 2014 , Prague - Wind power plants in Europe are the fastest growing source of energy not only from renewable energy sources . In contrast with this fact, in the Czech Republic, there is a high tendency to stop a development of the cheapest sources of energy and in year 2013 was installed only 5 wind turbines with a total installed capacity - 8 MW. It does not mean that we do not have a possibility to install more capacity , the current total installed capacity is 268 MW in wind which is in real mere the one tenth of the realistic potential of the Czech Republic.

"Total energy production from wind power plants in the Czech Republic grew by 62.4 gigawatt hours last year to 478 GWh. This corresponds to the coverage of the energy consumption around 136,000 households. It is 0.7 percent of the total gross consumption in the Czech Republic - in the EU it is 7.8%. The cheapest domestic renewable resource is in strong decline. " Said Chairman of the Czech Wind Energy Association ( ČSVE-CzWEA ) - Michal Janecek . The CzWEA brings together producers of electricity from the wind power and other companies from this sector. Last year was installed only 8 MW in wind in the Czech Republic . In total were realized only four new projects. In total to the end of last year we have installed 268 MW of wind power.

"Wind power plants installations , with exception of year 2012 , increase very slowly. Paradoxically in the National Action Plan (binding document ) , we have a space to an annual growth of about 45 MW up to 2020 which means that we should achieved total installed capacity of 743 MW of wind energy . " Janecek said . He added that according to the development in the last years , it seems that this goal CAN NOT be fulfilled by 2020. The reason is a commencement of highly “sophisticated” measures (fromal barriers) at the regional level in most regions where wind energy has interesting potential .

Nevertheless, in addition to this the State (Government) just stopped the support for new wind energy installations. Stepan Chalupa , Vice Chairman of the CzWEA , said: " It is incomprehensible that the State is revoking the support for the wind energy – the cheapest source ever, which is supported by hundreds of millions of crowns annually only, whereas for instance the coal power plants in the Czech Republic bring the external costs of 51 billion crowns annually and these costs do not pay the operators of coal power plants, but these costs are taken from public funds and will influence the future generations. " . The production of electricity produced from wind power plants saved 470,000 tons of coal in the Czech Republic, comparing to the same amount of the electricity produced form coal power plants.

Moreover the average household paid only 19 CZK for the whole last year for the support of the wind energy!.

Comparing to Europe trends where continues the development of the wind power and renewable energy sources, the Czech Republic supports nuclear power development and using of the reserves of coal instead. The wind was in Europe last year installed 11,159 GW and wind was the most growing source of all sources, not only the RES. This is a similar value as in 2012 , when the newly installed capacity was 11,892 GW in wind .

"Return to the past - this is today's concept of the Czech energy policy. We go through technologies that have failed to push through despite the massive support from the public funds, after more than half a century and we voluntarily give up a participation in the third industrial revolution, which means the changeover to modern renewable energy technologies , decentralization and economy bringing a clean environment, local employment and energy independence. We are Defending the democratization of the energy sector and we are helping to the big energy giants defend their dominant positions." said Chalupa.

Contacts:
Michal Janeček
Chairman of the Czech Wind Energy Association, predseda@csve.cz,
www.csve.cz /www.czwea.cz
Štěpán Chalupa
Vice Chairman of the Czech Wind Energy Association/ stepan.chalupa@csve.cz,
+420 603 420 387