On June 2, coinciding with the Global Exhibition Day, WindEurope announced at BEC that its annual event will be held again at the exhibition centre, between April 5 and 7, 2022. The event will include an exhibition in which they will showcase the latest developments in the wind energy sector, as well as a conference addressing all key market, technology and policy issues. The last annual WindEurope event that was held at Bilbao Exhibition Center in 2019 attracted 300 exhibitors and 8,500 visitors, and generated an economic impact of 10,533,629 euros in terms of GDP.

This time, the event comes at a watershed moment for the European wind industry. The EU and national governments rely on this sector as a pillar to meet the climate and energy targets set in Europe. As of today, wind power covers 16% of the electricity consumption of the whole of Europe. The EU wants that figure to rise to half by 2050 and for electricity to occupy a larger portion of the energy mix. And this implies a huge expansion in the wind sector: from the current 180 GW in the EU to 1,300 GW by 2050. Wind is predestined to become Europe’s first source of electricity by the end of the 2020s.

Wind energy is gaining more and more weight in the European economy. It employs 300,000 people throughout the territory and contributes 37,000 million euros a year to the GDP of the EU. Each new wind turbine generates an average of 10 million euros of economic activity.

Thus, Bilbao, Bizkaia and the Basque Country as a whole play a key role in the wind power industry in Spain. The region has become a relevant industrial nucleus for the wind sector with the capacity to create employment, economic value and local tax revenues. The headquarters of Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy and Iberdrola in Bilbao are just a small sample of the importance of this sector both within and around Bilbao.