British Wind Energy Association

The British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) is the trade and professional body for the wind power and marine renewable energy industries in the United Kingdom, and the UK's leading renewable energy trade association.

Originally founded in 1978 to promote wind power in the United Kingdom, in 2004 the British Wind Energy Association expanded its mission to champion wave and tidal energy and use the Association's experience to guide these technologies along the same path to commercialisation.

BWEA espouses the view that wind can provide for 8% of the UK's energy mix by 2010.

Aims and objectives

The primary purpose of the BWEA is to promote the use of wind power in and around the UK, both onshore and offshore. The association works to co-ordinate statistics and intelligence on wind power and marine renewables in the UK, and represents industry at home and abroad, to Government, regional bodies and to local authorities in the UK. They also act as a central point for information for members, and also carry out research and find solutions to current issues.

Wind energy has now started a major expansion in the UK and will be the single greatest contributor to the UK Government targets for 10% of electricity supplies to be met by renewables by 2010. Onshore wind alone could meet over half of this target, one of the conclusions of BWEA’s analysis of the sector conducted as part of the Government Energy Review.

Wind has been the world's fastest growing renewable energy source for the last seven years, and this trend is expected to continue with falling costs of wind energy and government policies aimed at reducing carbon emissions to prevent global warming.

History

A number of universities active in wind energy in the 1970s met under umbrella of the ITDG Wind Panel (Intermediate Technology Development Group). The BWEA was formed from the ITDG Wind Panel along with other interested parties and representatives from industry. The inaugural meeting of the BWEA took place on 17 November 1978 at the Rutherford Laboratory with Peter Musgrove of Reading University as chairman.

Members

The BWEA has nearly 500 members active in the areas of wind, wave and tidal stream power generation, of which 320 are corporate entities. A full listing may be found on the Web site.

ee also

*Energy use and conservation in the United Kingdom
*Wind power in Scotland

External links

* [http://www.bwea.com/ British Wind Energy Association website]
** [http://www.bwea.com/ukwed/map-operational.html Map - operational wind farms in the UK]