Turbine orders were up year on year and auction volumes are strong. But grid bottlenecks are delaying projects. And it's challenging right now to get big new investments over the line. Further improvements are needed in auction design. Permitting is improving though not everywhere yet. And ports need investments.
New wind installations in H1 2024
In the first half (H1) of 2024 Europe added 6.4 GW of new wind energy capacity: 5.3 GW onshore and 1.1 GW offshore. The EU-27 built 5.7 GW of this: 4.7 GW onshore and 1 GW offshore. Germany built the most with 1.7 GW, followed by France (1.2 GW) and Spain (876 MW).
Europe now has 278 GW of wind power capacity. 242 GW of this is onshore and 35 GW offshore. The EU-27 now has 225 GW of wind: 205 GW onshore and 20 GW offshore.
Wind turbine orders are up on last year: by 11% on H1 2023 for all of Europe and by 33% for the EU. And current auction volumes are strong: EU Governments awarded 19.7 GW of new wind capacity in their auctions in H1, twice as much as in H1 2023. The permitting numbers are also encouraging, notably the 5 GW new onshore permits Germany awarded in H1.
But investment decisions to build new wind farms are down on last year. Europe took €15.4bn of final investment decisions (FIDs) in new wind farms in H1 2024. This is less than 30% of the total FIDs taken in 2023. There are four offshore FIDs so far this year. The new installations in H1 2024 are slightly less than expected, and less than half of what was built in the whole of 2023. We now expect the EU to build 15 GW of new wind farms this year, compared to 16 GW in 2023.
