According to WindEurope data, the EU built 17 GW of new wind farms in 2023: 14 GW onshore; 3 GW offshore. These numbers are slightly up on 2022 and are the most the EU has ever built in a single year.
But 17 GW is well below the 30 GW a year that the EU needs to build to meet its new 2030 climate and energy security targets. Germany built the most new wind capacity followed by the Netherlands and Sweden. The Netherlands built the most new offshore wind. The IEA estimates that Europe will build 23 GW a year of new wind over 2024-28. Wind was 19% of the electricity produced in the EU last year. Hydro was 13%, solar 8% and biomass 3%. Renewables in total amounted to 44% of electricity produced. The amount of electricity produced from 1 GW of wind continued to grow. The “capacity factor” of new onshore wind farms now ranges from 30-48%, and new offshore wind is consistently 50%. The capacity factor measures how much output you get from a unit of capacity - it varies between different renewable technologies.
