WindEurope, AWS and Accenture To Develop Digital Tool To Accelerate Wind Permitting In Europe

Just when it was revealed that Europe has invested least in 2022 in new offshore wind development since 2009, Amazon Web Services, Accenture and WindEurope have collaborated to develop digital tools that will help in fast and easy permitting process that will provide fillip to the renewable energy in Europe.

In its officials statement, WindEurope held that permitting remains the biggest bottleneck for deploying wind at scale. Approximately 80 GW of wind power capacity is currently stuck in permitting procedures across Europe. It takes too long for developers to receive permits – up to nine years in some countries.

“This is incompatible with the EU’s climate & energy ambitions – last year the EU only installed 16 GW of new wind while it needs 31 GW every year on average to 2030 to meet its targets,” said WindEurope.

Amazon Web Services (AWS), Accenture and WindEurope have come together to work towards a solution and have developed EasyPermits, a digital permitting tool that streamlines the approval process for wind farms in Europe.

WindEurope mentioned that the EasyPermits platform offers a single location for stakeholders to automate workflows, increase accuracy for wind permit applications and enhance process transparency. This should all contribute to a more streamlined permitting process.

Malgosia Bartosik, Deputy-CEO at WindEurope, said, “More wind energy projects are needed to move towards the new EU 2030 42.5% renewables target. The new EU Renewables Directives mandates EU countries to digitalise permitting processes within two years: this is a game-changer. Now we need to equip municipalities, city planners and permitting authorities with the digital tools to deliver on this.”

She further added, “The right tools will make the permitting processes more efficient, save time and money for all stakeholders involved and improve social acceptance, ensuring no one is left behind in Europe’s energy transition. We need rules and tools. Regulation alone will not make it.”

The New Platform 

WindEurope said that the end-to-end permitting solution, powered by AWS services, including AWS S3, Lambda, Amplify, Cognito, Textract, and Lex can enable local, regional and national agencies to:

• Reduce processing time through digitizing and automatically extracting data from documents, allowing permit agents to spend more time on the most valuable jobs.
• Increase accuracy of wind permit applications through automated checklists and workflow triggers and notifications for necessary agency stakeholders.
• Collect, manage and process all documents in a single repository.
• Have transparency on progress throughout the permitting process.

WindEurope held that templated workflows and application templates available on the platform can also help developers deliver more consistent project proposals whilst the public and other authorities will have improved access to useful information such as benefit assessments or environmental and economic impact documentation.