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PoliticaleEconomic Governance of Renewable Chapter j 4 75

world’s leading wind power turbine manufacturer with partner companies all
over the world because of its partnership and joint ventures in China. Vestas
continues to introduce improved third-generation turbines that are lighter,
stronger, and more efficient and reliable. They also continue to design new
systems, like those that can be installed offshore away from impacted urban
areas.
Germany, Spain, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Luxembourg, Norway,
Denmark, and Sweden are on track to achieve their renewable energy gener-
ation goals. Italy is fast approaching the same goals when in 2010, it gained
the distinction of having the most megawatts of solar energy installed from
Germany. However, Denmark is one of the most aggressive countries due to its
seeking 100% renewable energy power generation by 2050. Already Denmark
has a goal of 50% renewable energy generation by 2015 (Clark, 2009). Other
EU countries are lagging behind, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.
The European Union has required all its member nations to implement pro-
grams like those in Western European Union to be energy independent from
getting oil and gas, especially now since most of these supplies come from
North Africa, the Middle East, and Russia.
Various EU nations have widely different starting positions in terms of
resource availability and energy policy stipulations. France, for example, is a
stronger supporter of nuclear energy. Finland, recently has installed a nuclear
power plant due its desire to be less dependent on natural gas from Russia.
However, Sweden is shutting down its nuclear power plants. The United
Kingdom and the Netherlands have offshore gas deposits, although with
reduced output predictions. In Germany, lignite offers a competitive founda-
tion for baseload power generation, although hard coal from German deposits
is not internationally competitive. In Austria, hydropower is the dominating
energy source for generating power, although expansion is limited.
Other European Union directives toward energy efficiency improvement
and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reductions also impact electricity gen-
eration demand. Many EU members have taken additional measures to limit
GHG emissions at the national level. Since the EU-15 is likely to miss its
pledged reduction target without the inclusion of additional tools, the Euro-
pean Parliament and the Council enacted a system for trading GHG emission
allowances in the community under the terms of Directive 2003/87/EC dated
October 13, 2003. CO 2 emissions trading started in January 2005 but have not
produced the desired results due to limitations of “cap-and-trade” economic
measures and the use of auctions over credits given for climate reduction.
After being established for 3 years, by 2007 the results are not good,
however, as the economics and “markets” are not performing as predicted.
Basically the carbon exchanges have performed poorly and not as promised to
either buyers or sellers of carbon credits (or other exchange mechanisms). The
initial issues are emission caps not being tight enough and lack of significant
EU or local government oversight (EU, 2009). By 2010, many of the