Renewable energy is energy from natural resources such as sunlight, wind, rain, tides, and geothermal heat. About 16% of global final energy consumption comes from renewables, with 10% coming from traditional biomass, which is mainly used for heating, and 3.4% from hydroelectricity.

• Technology and economic challenges to achieve grid parity
  
• Different technologies are required
  
• Many for the future technologies are not economically viable today
  
• R&D cooperation is required
  
• Transfer of technology and competence is a prerequisite to achieve the global environmental goals
  

Wind power is growing at the rate of 30% annually, with a worldwide installed capacity of 198 gigawatts (GW) in 2010. It is widely used in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Bloomberg (2011) reports an 18% decrease in wind turbines since 2009 due to increased competition.

EU wants to be a world leader in halting climate change. The 6th. of April 2009 the climate-energy legislative package containing measures to combat climate change and boost the EU's energy security and competitiveness was adopted. The Council endorsed the following targets; 20% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, 20% improved energy efficiency, and 20% increased share of renewable energy in the total energy consumption; 10% increased biofuels in the transport sector. This package builds on EU's commitments to the Kyoto Protocol and is referred to as the EU202020. The Directive is mandatory for all EU 27 members and members of the European Economic Area agreement (EEA); Norway, Lichtenstein and Iceland.

The Directive to promote the use of energy from renewable sources (2009/28/EC) - called RES Directive, was one of the most important. It creates a regulatory framework for achieving a share of 20% renewable energy in the total EU energy consumption by 2020, based on the energy consumption in 2005. To achieve this RES Directive sets binding national targets for each Member State.

Each Member State must submit a National Renewable Action Plans (NREAP) to the EU Commission showing their roadmap to achieve the targets in the transport, electricity, heating and cooling sectors.

The RES Directive includes flexible mechanisms to mitigate cost and lack of resource base.
The intention is to encourage cooperation between EU/EEA members by the use of statistical transfer, joint projects and joint scheme/market for investment. The joint marked agreed by Norway and Sweden is the first example of use of the flexible mechanisms in the RES Directive.