Germany’s wind energy sector has shown growth in capacity additions as well as the pipeline of permitted projects in the first nine months of 2023, reports industry body Fachagentur Windenergie.
By the end of September, over 50% more new system output had gone into operation than in the comparable period of 2022 it reported.
With a gross addition of 2436MW of output, the previous year’s figure of 2405MW has already been exceeded after three quarters of 2023.
Over a third of this year’s new plant output was built in Schleswig-Holstein (869MW). Lower Saxony (424MW) and North Rhine-Westphalia (333MW) follow in second and third place in the country ranking.
The only drawback was in the southern region, where only 7% percent of this year’s new system output was installed.
The repowering rate (based on new system output) was 34% at the end of September – the highest proportion in nine years.
Not only has the number of new systems increased significantly, the decommissioning of old wind turbines is also increasing noticeably Fachagentur Windenergie found.
By the end of September, around 320 old systems with an output of 400MW had already been taken out of operation – twice as many as in the same period last year.
The current development in permits is even more dynamic than gross expansion said the body, which found within nine months, a record 5.2GW of wind energy output were approved nationwide.
The situation is particularly outstanding in North Rhine-Westphalia and Schleswig-Holstein, where more than 1.1GW were approved in the period. Even of the newly issued permits, only a small part of just under 8% addresses wind energy projects within the southern region.
At the beginning of October 2023, the market master data register recorded more than 2400 approved wind turbines with a total output of 12.4GW that have not yet been implemented.
The dynamic development suggests gross expansion will exceed the 3GW threshold by the end of the year – for the first time since 2017. The newly approved output volume could grow to more than 6GW by the end of December.