Europe added 19 GW of new wind energy capacity in 2025, as well as investing €45 billion in projects that are set to be developed over the coming years, new data from WindEurope has revealed.
According to WindEurope’s Annual Statistics Report, total installed wind energy capacity in Europe now stands at 304 GW.
However, the group added that political discussions about changes to Europe-wide electricity market design, and a renegotiation of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) could undermine the progress made last year.
‘Stepping up’
“Europe’s wind industry is stepping up to the task. In 2025 the industry invested €45 billion to make Europe more competitive and secure,” commented WindEurope CEO Tinne van der Straeten. “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.”
In terms of the countries that led the way for wind capacity expansion last year, Germany installed some 5.7 GW, followed by Türkiye (2.1 GW), Sweden (1.8 GW) and Spain (1.6 GW).
Onshore wind remained the ‘driving force’ of expansion last year, accounting for 90% of all new capacity, or 17 GW. Onshore wind installations were spread out across Europe, with nine different countries adding more than 500 MW, including Lithuania, which increased its capacity by more than 40% with a 759 MW wind capacity addition.
Offshore wind capacity remained sluggish, however, with 2 GW added to Europe’s electricity networks in 2025, the lowest level of offshore installations since 2016, and just three countries adding new offshore turbines: the UK, Germany and France.
WindEurope said that it expects a ‘catch-up effect’ in offshore wind capacity in 2026.
Potential hurdles
The group pointed to bottlenecks in electricity grid build-out, the electrification of industry, mobility and heating, and project permissions as potential stumbling blocks to future wind expansion.
‘Europe is now set to build 151 GW of new wind energy over the 2026-2030 period,’ it said. ‘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.’ Read more here.
