Welcome to IEA Wind
and the Co-operative Agreement

The International Energy Agency (IEA) Wind agreement is a vehicle for member countries to exchange information on the planning and execution of national large-scale wind system projects and to undertake co-operative research and development (R&D) projects called Tasks or Annexes.

In 2012, there are 25 contracting parties to this agreement. The contracting parties are designated by the 20 Member Countries, the European Commission, the Chinese Wind Energy Association, and the European Wind Energy Association. (Italy and Norway have two contracting parties.) The official contracting parties to the IEA Wind agreement are listed below.

Overall control of information exchange and the R&D Tasks is vested in the Executive Committee (ExCo). The ExCo consists of a Member and an Alternate Member from each contracting party that has signed the Implementing Agreement. Most countries are represented by one contracting party such as a government department or agency. Alternate members are often selected from research organizations within the Member Country.

The ExCo meets twice each year to exchange information on the R&D programs of the Member countries, to discuss work progress on the various Tasks, and to plan future activities. Decisions are reached by majority vote. Each Member Country has one vote on the ExCo. Member Countries share the cost of administration for the ExCo through annual contributions to the Common Fund. The Common Fund supports the efforts of the Secretariat and other expenditures approved by the ExCo in the annual budget.

The R&D Tasks performed under IEA Wind are approved by the ExCo as Annexes to the original Implementing Agreement (as revised in 1991). These tasks are sometimes referred to by their Annex number. Each Task is managed by an Operating Agent organization within one of the Member Countries.

The level of effort varies for each Task. Some Tasks involve only information exchange and require each country to contribute less than 0.1 person-year of work. Other tasks involve test programs requiring several people working over two or more years to complete. Some of these R&D projects are “task shared” by each country performing a subtask; other projects are “cost shared” by each country contributing to the budget for a designated lead country to perform the work.

The technical results of Tasks are shared among participating countries, unless the participants agree to release the results to others. Only countries with parties interested in the outcome of a Task choose to participate by signing the Annex agreement and contributing to the work. Each Member Country participates in at least one Task.

Co-operative Research through Research Tasks (Annexes)

The activities of national programmes and of the collaborative R&D projects are reported each year in a 200-page Annual Report that is provided to Members for distribution in their countries. It can be downloaded at no cost. Annual Reports

Membership in the IEA Wind cooperative agreement is open to any country with an active wind energy program. For information on how a country joins the agreement.