Germany has seen a significant increase in the construction and approval of new wind turbines, but one region is still lagging behind. The federal government plans to expand the share of renewable energy to at least 80% by 2030, but a recent study by the Energy Economics Institute at the University of Cologne found that six new wind turbines need to be built daily to achieve this goal. However, the actual expansion rate has been only about two wind turbines per day in recent years, partly due to conspiracy theories that delay or prevent construction.
Data from the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) shows that the expansion of onshore wind energy experienced a significant upswing in the first quarter of 2023. Compared to the same period last year, significantly more new wind turbines were put into operation, with 117 new wind turbines installed nationwide with a total capacity of 546 megawatts, representing a 17% increase over the previous year. It should be noted that this number could still increase as commissioning can be reported until the end of April.
In the first quarter of this year, significantly more wind turbines were approved than in the same period last year, with a total of 295 turbines with a total capacity of about 1.65 gigawatts newly approved, representing a 38% increase over the same quarter of the previous year. However, the approval of a wind turbine by the relevant authorities is a crucial hurdle, and in the best case, a new wind turbine can only be put into operation 20 months after approval.
The BWE expressed concern about the expansion of wind energy in southern Germany, particularly in Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, where the expansion lags behind other regions. In the current expansion and approval volume of 2023, only 7.8% of the expansion and 4.5% of the approvals were in the southern region. In Baden-Württemberg, only one new turbine was approved, and in Bavaria, only two. In contrast, NRW, Schleswig-Holstein, and Lower Saxony are driving the expansion significantly in terms of both expansion and approval volume. This unequal distribution of wind energy expansion could have a negative impact on the energy transition in Germany and urgently requires measures to promote wind energy expansion in southern Germany.
