Germany adds 60% more onshore wind power in H1 but pace seen too slow

FRANKFURT, July 18 (Reuters) – Germany added 60% more onshore wind capacity in the first half of 2023 than a year earlier at a total of 1,565 megawatts (MW), but needs far more to reach its 2030 target, wind industry lobbies said on Tuesday.

Wind power is central to Germany’s transition to renewable energy as Berlin aims to generate at least 80% of electricity output by 2030 from green sources such as solar and wind, to lower carbon emissions.

The roll-out has become more pressing with the drop of Russian fossil fuel exports to Germany last year, demonstrating the risks of reliance on imports and the need for local energy.

Associations BWE and the VDMA Power Systems engineering group, which represent turbine makers including Nordex (NDXG.DE), Vestas Deutschland (VWS.CO) and GE Deutschland (GE.N), issued statistics showing that the 1,565 MW total compared with 977 MW added in the first half of 2022.

The organisations credited the government’s interventions in favour of building activity and the speeding of permits for the increase.

Assuming these developments will continue, they expect that at least the upper end of a full-year projection made in January for additions totalling 2,700-3,200 MW will be reached this year, said Baerbel Heidebroek, BWE’s president, at a virtual news conference.

However, even the significantly increased permit numbers are not enough to achieve growth rates of 10,000 MW per year from 2025, which would be necessary to achieve the government’s green energy targets for 115,000 MW of onshore wind in 2030, she said.

“We must streamline and tighten the approval procedures and set strict deadlines,” she added.

Dennis Rendschmidt, VDMA Power Systems’ managing director, said approvals for heavy road transports of parts are taking an average of 12 weeks in Germany compared with four to five days in the Netherlands.

Ministries outside the economy ministry run by the Greens’ Robert Habeck and state and local authorities should cooperate better, the two organisations said.

Germany’s total installed onshore wind capacity had reached 59,343 MW at the end of June 2023, the data from the two organisations showed.

This represented a net increase of 4.4% from a year earlier, after accounting for dismantling and revamps of existing turbines.