Germany likely to exceed 2030 onshore wind power targets – think tank
Clean Energy Wire
Germany looks set to exceed its 2030 onshore wind power target by 2.6 percent, according to an analysis by the Google-backed think tank Goal100. Considering the number of applications and permits for new wind farms, and the shortening of approval processes, the think tank found that the country would likely exceed its target of 115 gigawatts (GW) of installed wind capacity by 2030 by 3 GW. More than 50 GW of planned capacity is currently awaiting approval or already being installed, which will contribute about 60 percent of the required additional capacity to hit the 2030 target. “The conversion of the steel industry to climate neutrality in addition to reliable backup capacities above all requires enormous amounts of renewable electricity and this at internationally competitive costs,” commented Kerstin Maria Rippel, managing director of the German Steel Federation. “The rapid expansion of wind energy is a crucial building block for this.”
Goal100’s analysis is publicly available through its monitoring platform, intended to provide up-to-date information for policymakers and wind stakeholders on the volume of wind development applications, approvals and planning time on a state-by-state basis. The platform shows that, due to political initiatives, the average approval period across the country fell by 20 percent between 2023 and 2024. In 2024, licenses were approved for 14 GW of capacity, with nearly another 4 GW entering operation. According to the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), 2024 marked “an absolute record year” as 2,405 new turbines, with a total capacity of over 14 GW, were licensed
Expanding onshore wind capacity is a key part of the country’s drive to reach climate neutrality by 2045, including hitting the milestone of a 65 percent reduction in emissions by 2030. Currently, Germany has 28,766 onshore wind turbines in operation across the country, with a combined output of 63.4 GW, which accounted for 23.1 percent of gross power production last year.
