Wind turbine orders in Europe fall 36% year-on-year

Orders for wind turbines in Europe fell 36% year-on-year in the third quarter of 2022, with inflationary cost pressures, slow permitting and uncertainty around the EU’s emergency electricity market interventions combining to stifle the market.

That’s according to new research from industry association WindEurope.

Orders for new wind turbines totalled 2GW in the quarter. All for onshore turbines, the orders came from nine countries; Finland ordered the most new capacity with 322MW, followed by Sweden and Germany.

It brings the 2022 order total so far to 7.7GW – a far cry from what the EU requires for its energy and climate targets. The bloc wants 510GW of wind energy by 2030, requiring the wind industry to install around 39GW of new wind power each year until the end of the decade.

In fact, the third-quarter decline is part of a downward trend in wind turbine orders in Europe; orders in the first quarter of 2021 were at 2.8GW and have been generally decreasing ever since.

“The rapid deployment of wind energy has never been more urgent – for energy security, for the climate, and for affordable energy prices,” said WindEurope in a statement. “This requires a step change in EU policy: to accelerate permitting of new projects, give renewables investors visibility, and strengthen and expand the European wind supply chain.”

The Hamburg-based multinational Nordex – one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of wind turbines – shut down its only German blade factory, in Rostock, in June 2022.