Words: Kim Mørk, Executive Vice President of Renewables Certification, DNV GL Energy
The wind power industry has changed massively over the last 10-15 years.
New concepts, technologies and devices have arisen and certification has
played an essential role in bringing these developments to market. But today
the wind industry is much more mature, and the pioneering projects of the early
days have now been operating effectively for many years. So it’s time to ask:
does the wind energy industry still need certification?
Predicting the future of the certification market is no easy task. The energy industry is constantly evolving and so the certification market has to evolve to support it. For example, 15 years ago renewables certification essentially consisted of type certification; there was almost no demand for project certification. Now, project certification makes up around half of the market.
In that time, certification has supported technical innovation by improving the reliability of both products and projects. For wind power, like other renewables sectors, this has led to huge improvements in processes and technologies – boosting performance, quality and reliability of wind power assets. Now that the industry has reached maturity, the question arises: Is certification still relevant?
