Germany: wind turbines & electricity

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Between 2020 and 2025 the installed onshore wind capacity in Germany increased from 55 to 68 MW (+24%).

Over the same period the amount of electricity produced by wind was essentially static (105 to 106 TWh).

Why the disconnect? Some possible causes:

  • Weaking winds
  • Grid bottlenecks
  • Optimal locations already taken
  • ‘Stealing’ or ‘shading’ by other turbines

Any thoughts? Has the expansion run into physical or systemic limits? The spending for the expansion has been between €5.5 billion and €6 billion per year.

DB2

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I think you mean GW.

According to the source I use for Germany’s energy statistics, onshore wind production peaked in 2023 at 115.9 TWh, then decreased to 110.6 TWh in 2024, and decreased again to 105.1 TWh in 2025.

Just eyeballing it, but it looks like it could be natural variation. Some years are windier than others. The general trend in generation is still up. At the end of this month, we should be able to compare the first half of 2026 against the first half of other years.

_ Pete

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Combining the installed capacities with the actual generation, I calculated the onshore wind capacity factors for Germany going back to 2020. Below are the results.

Year Capacity Factor
2020      21.7%
2021      18.7
2022      19.5
2023      22.2
2024      20.2
2025      18.2

This compares to about 34% overall capacity factor for wind in the US. Almost all of the installed wind capacity in the US is on-shore.

Solar capacity factor in Germany averages around 10% for the entire year (even lower in the winter months.) This compares to 24% average in the US. A northern, often cloudy country in Europe like Germany is not the best place to install a lot of solar panels.

Building an electric grid centered on generation technologies that have capacity factors of 20% and 10% is not a good plan, in my opinion. Hence, Germany still operates a large amount of dispatchable and reliable fossil power such as coal and natural gas. That is not a workable plan to get to zero carbon, if that is what you want to do.

_ Pete

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