Materials use in electricity generators in wind turbines - state-of-the-art and future specifications

The European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan), adopted by the European Union in 2008, is a first step to establish an energy technology policy for Europe. The SET-Plan will support the 2020 energy and climate change objectives from the technology development point of view. One of the SET-Plan initiatives is to analyse the materials that will be needed in order to achieve the 2020 targets, in terms both of amounts and of technical specifications, and the way to get there. For this, the SET-Plan Materials initiative was created to foster a roadmap which is based on the corresponding scientific assessment. The current paper presents the work of the author in this scientific assessment which refers to the electricity generator part of wind turbines. It includes the aspects of technology and system state-of-the-art and challenges; material supply status and challenges; on-going research and actors, and challenges; materials specification targets for market implementation in 2020/2030; synergies with other technologies; and needs and recommendation of activities addressing 2020 and 2030 market implementation.JRC.F.6-Energy Technology Policy Outloo