Overview
- Berlin and Brussels reached a basic agreement enabling tenders this year for about 12 GW of new controllable capacity, with 10 GW required to run for extended periods, first units targeted to be online by 2030/31, and all plants designed for hydrogen conversion and full decarbonisation by 2045.
- The state‑aid process is not fully concluded and enabling legislation is still required, while the EU also allowed a capacity mechanism of roughly 29 GW to pay providers for keeping reserve power available, with funding options yet to be decided.
- Germany logged its second‑best onshore year in 2025 with 958 turbines adding about 5.2 GW gross (net ≈4.6 GW after retirements) and a record 20.7 GW approved, placing it at the top of Europe’s new build.
- Project delivery is slowing due to grid connection bottlenecks, longer approval‑to‑commissioning times approaching 29 months, and auction volumes that trail the growing pipeline, according to industry groups.
- Across Europe only an estimated 17–18 GW of wind capacity was installed last year, which WindEurope says is well below what is needed, while German state results diverged sharply with NRW, Lower Saxony and Schleswig‑Holstein leading and Bavaria, Thuringia and Saarland lagging.