A return on investment that is hard to argue with
There are not many budget decisions where the maths are this compelling. The Trinomics study, carried out in collaboration with DTU Wind and commissioned by WindEurope, finds that strategically earmarking EU funding for wind innovation and industrial scale-up would generate seven euros in annual economic returns for every public euro invested — by 2040. For context, most sectoral aid programmes struggle to exceed a 3-to-1 ratio.
The total price tag is €11.6 billion, with roughly €9 billion earmarked for ramping up manufacturing capacity. The goal is straightforward: ensure Europe’s supply chain can actually keep pace with the surging demand driven by the bloc’s push for energy independence. The researchers recommend embedding this funding within the European Competitiveness Fund to guarantee strategic, accountable allocation.
What €11.6 billion could realistically change by 2040
The projections are striking across every dimension. If the EU commits to this targeted funding, Trinomics’s models indicate the following outcomes by 2040:
- €33 billion per year added in gross value to the EU economy;
- 180,000 additional jobs created across the full value chain;
- €12.6 billion in additional annual EU wind equipment exports;
- up to 89% of wind sector value retained within Europe, compared to just 47% without targeted support;
- 70 billion cubic metres of imported gas displaced annually — the equivalent of around 700 LNG shipments.
That last figure deserves particular attention. Since the rupture with Russian gas supply, energy security has returned to the very top of Europe’s political agenda. The ability to displace 70 bcm of annual gas imports is a sovereignty argument that few technologies can match — and it is baked directly into the wind industry’s economic case.
Current EU support is fragmented, slow, and far too small
The paradox is striking. Despite this potential, wind energy typically receives less than 2% of the budgets in the EU programmes it is eligible for. The study maps no fewer than twelve separate funding mechanisms where wind can theoretically apply — but most issue broad, technology-neutral calls with no specific targeting of the sector.
Administrative speed is an equally serious problem. Under Horizon Europe and the Innovation Fund, the average time from application to signed contract runs to over nine months. In an industry where investment decisions and technology cycles move at quarterly pace, that kind of delay is not a bureaucratic inconvenience — it is a structural competitive disadvantage.
China is not making the same mistake
While Europe deliberated, China moved decisively. According to the data compiled in the study, Chinese turbine manufacturers received between two and five times more public support than their European counterparts over recent years. That funding advantage is translating directly into market share: Chinese turbine makers are scaling faster and competing more aggressively in markets that European manufacturers long considered their home turf.
The stakes extend well beyond commercial competition. Allowing this gap to widen risks ceding control over infrastructure that is not merely economic but strategic: the turbines, cables and control systems that will form the backbone of Europe’s electricity grid for decades to come. The study is explicit on this point — wind is not just an energy policy choice. It is a core industrial strategy, in the same category as semiconductors and batteries.
The proposal: a dedicated Fund for Wind Research and Competitiveness
To fix these structural weaknesses, Trinomics recommends creating a dedicated Fund for Wind Research and Competitiveness — a purpose-built mechanism with targeted calls, shorter timelines and transparent criteria. It would cover the full value chain, from fundamental R&D to components, logistics and offshore installation.
This is not a proposal for a blank-cheque subsidy programme. The recommendation is to earmark funding intelligently within the European Competitiveness Fund, creating a coherent strategic allocation rather than the current scatter of small-scale, diffuse support spread across a dozen different instruments.
A no-regret option the EU cannot afford to pass up
The study’s use of the phrase “no-regret option” is deliberate. It means there is no plausible scenario in which this investment proves counterproductive. Whatever pace the energy transition takes, wind power will remain central to Europe’s electricity mix for the foreseeable future. The question is not whether the EU should support the sector — it is whether it will do so soon enough to prevent competitors from locking in irreversible advantages.
The message from Trinomics is unambiguous: the next EU multiannual financial framework is a window that will not stay open indefinitely. Funding that is focused, predictable and fast enough to match industrial timelines would deliver more European manufacturing, more innovation, more exports, stronger supply chains and higher energy security — while keeping far more of the wind sector’s value inside Europe.
Europe already has the tools. What it needs now is the will to use them.
