Europe invested €45bn in new wind energy in 2025, market tampering would put future investments at acute risk

Wind energy continues to strengthen Europe’s industrial competitiveness and energy security. In 2025 Europe built 19 GW of new wind energy capacity. Europe also invested €45bn in additional wind energy projects to be built over the next years. But political considerations to reform the EU electricity market design and to renegotiate the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) threaten to undermine the progress made in 2025.

Europe built 19.1 GW of new wind power capacity in 2025, bringing its total wind energy capacity to 304 GW. That’s according to WindEurope’s Annual Statistics Report published today.

“Europe’s wind industry is stepping up to the task. In 2025 the industry invested €45bn to make Europe more competitive and secure. But politicians considering to tamper with the EU electricity market design and the architecture of the EU ETS directly undermine these investments. Changing the rules of the game now would be waving goodbye to competitiveness and energy security”, says WindEurope CEO Tinne van der Straeten.

Installation trends

Germany built most new capacity (5.2 GW), followed by Türkiye (2.1 GW), Sweden (1.8 GW) and Spain (1.6 GW).

Onshore wind remained the driving force behind last year’s expansion with 90% of all new capacity being installed on land. 2025 marked a record year with more than 17 GW of new onshore wind capacity added. Repowering accounted for 2 GW of this figure. Onshore wind installations were fairly spread across Europe with 9 countries installing more than 500 MW.

Lithuania stood out, installing 759 MW to increase its total capacity by over 40%. Wind covered 33% of Lithuania’s electricity demand in 2025, empowering the Baltic country at the front line with Russia to decouple from Russia’s power grid and be less dependant on Russian fossil fuel imports.

Over the same period Europe connected 2 GW of new offshore wind capacity to the grid, the lowest installation figure since 2016. This is in part due to delays in construction. We expect a catch-up effect in 2026. Only three countries connected new offshore wind turbines: the UK, Germany and France.

Outlook for 2026-2030

Europe is now set to build 151 GW of new wind energy over the 2026-2030 period. 112 GW of those will be in the EU. More than a third of this EU build-out will come from the flourishing German onshore wind market. Most other EU countries are facing serious challenges to the expansion of wind energy:

Grids: Insufficient electricity grid build-out and grid connection queues remain the number one bottlenecks. Member States have no time to waste implementing the excellent measures from the EU Grids Package.

Electrification: Governments are not doing enough to electrify industry, mobility and heating. The slow uptake of electrification is increasingly undermining the business case for new wind. The EU’s upcoming Electrification Action Plan must address this. It should specifically focus on “low hanging fruits” such as low- and medium-temperature industrial heat applications which can be electrified with commercially available technologies such as heat pumps and electric boilers. More broadly, EU and Member States must do more to de-risk electrification investments and reduce non-energy related taxes and levies on electricity.

Permitting: The EU has put forward excellent measures to accelerate the permitting of new wind projects under the Renewable Energy Directive. But most Member States are dragging their feed. In fact, permitting is worsening rather than improving in most Member States. The Commission has initiated infringement procedures against 26 of 27 EU Member States for failing to implement these measures. In times of declining industrial competitiveness and high power prices these delays are unacceptable.

Read the full WindEurope Statistics and Outlook Report