Brussels (ANSA) – EU wind operators are pointing fingers at the agreement between Italy and the Chinese renewable giant MingYang, asking Brussels to launch an investigation. “It is difficult to reconcile the memorandum of understanding” announced by Minister Adolfo Urso on August 8th “with the EU’s goal of maintaining technological leadership in the wind energy sector and strengthening the European supply chain,” said Wind Europe spokesperson Christoph Zipf to the specialized magazine EnergyWatch.
The Sino-Italian cooperation foresees the creation in Italy of a new company formed by the Italian Renexia and the Chinese company to build a turbine factory “to strengthen the national supply chain of the sector” in an area to be identified in central-southern Italy within two years. This, Wind Europe warned again, “is not what the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, meant in her State of the Union address when she stated that the wind turbines of the future must be built in Europe”.
The agreement, according to the association representing European wind operators, should be reviewed by Brussels following the procedure of the new EU instrument on foreign subsidies. The same opinion is shared by the Danish industrial association Green Power Denmark: deputy director Jan Hylleberg questions the compatibility of the memorandum with a series of recent EU regulations – from the Net-Zero Industry Act to the Critical Raw Materials Act and the Foreign Subsidies Act.