About 12% of EU electricity is expected to come from wind power by 2020 as part of a plan to fight climate change and to curb dependence on gas and oil imports from Russia and other exporters.
"Russia plays with the taps every New Year," said Christian Kjaer, EWEA’s chief executive. "It’s not going to get any easier, and we can’t carry on handing all this wealth to a handful of fossil-fuel-exporting nations."
"Wind power not only has the potential to satisfy the increasing electricity demand in a sustainable manner,” he said, “it is also a significant and vital stimulus to economies."
The EU wind-energy sector directly employed 108,600 people in 2007, with a further 42,700 people indirectly employed. Kjaer predicted that the sector would be among the first to emerge from the current economic crisis. It provides attractive risk profile for investors, he said.
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