Wind power turbine fleet's output grows 25 percent in Germany over five years
Clean Energy Wire
From January to September 2023, wind turbines fed almost 89.9 million megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity into Germany's power grid. This was 25 percent more than in the same period in 2018. Only in the first three quarters of 2020 was the grid feed-in from wind turbines even higher at 92.3 million MWh, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reports. In September 2023, approximately 31,000 offshore and onshore wind turbines with a total nominal output of almost 68,400 megawatts (MW) were installed. Since 2018, the nominal output increased by 16 percent, while the number of wind turbines rose significantly less rapidly in the same period, increasing by 3 percent. One reason for this is that old systems were shut down and replaced by more powerful ones, Destatis noted. In September 2018, there were around 30,200 wind turbines with a nominal output of some 58,800 MW. Expansion increased slightly last year: in September 2022, around 30,600 systems with a nominal output of a good 64,900 MW were installed.
Germany added 50 percent more new wind power capacity in the first nine months of 2023 than in the same time period last year, according to earlier reports. The share of wind power in total electricity generation is also increasing. In the first three quarters of 2023, for the first time, more than a quarter (27%) of the electricity fed into Germany came from wind power. By contrast, from January to September 2018, wind power accounted for only 17% of total electricity generation. The increasing share of wind power is also related to the overall decline in electricity generation: in the first three quarters of 2023, 22% less electricity was generated in Germany than in the same period in 2018.
