Wind Industry Installs Record Capacity in 2024 Despite Policy Instability

The Global Wind Energy Council is out with its annual report highlighting that 2024 was a record year for new capacity, with 117 GW of wind energy installed across the world. However, it also pointed out that although 2024 was another record year for wind installations the headline numbers mask big disparities in terms of the pace of deployment across global markets, and now trade wars and political instability threaten the progress for the sector.

The lion’s share of installations in 2024 however also took place in a small number of key mature markets, including China and Europe. Much of the progress also came onshore where 109 GW was added while just 8 GW was installed offshore. Globally it reports capacity has reached 1,136 GW, spread across all continents and with 55 countries installing wind turbines in 2024.

China led the way for new installations in 2024 with 79824 MW of new capacity while surprisingly despite growing opposition the U.S. was second (4058 MW) edging out Germany. India and Brazil rounded out the Top 5 in 2024.

There was record growth in other regions, including Asia-Pacific (7 percent), while Africa & Middle East saw a 107 percent growth rate, driven by Egypt installing 794 MW and Saudi Arabia’s 390 MW. North America, LATAM, and Europe experienced a decline in new installations compared with 2023.

“Once again, the wind industry has broken new installation records, despite more challenging macroeconomic headwinds over the last few years,” said Ben Backwell, CEO of GWEC. “The aggressive stoking of tariff wars adds further uncertainty to international investment decisions and threatens to disrupt the international supply chains which the wind industry relies on. The full costs on our industry of the wide array of declared and threatened tariffs we have seen – both general and on specific commodities such as steel - have yet to be fully calculated.”

GWEC, however, warns of increasing policy instability in some markets and points to the need to improve permitting, grid transmission, and auctioning mechanisms. It says these steps are critical to keep pace with the global trend for electrification, meet countries’ energy and climate targets, and lessen reliance on volatile fossil fuels. It also sees this as critical to fulfilling globally agreed ambitions to triple renewable energy capacity by 2030.

“It's vitally important that policymakers around the world don’t take their eyes off the prize, ensure stable and predictable market frameworks, work within multilateral frameworks to ensure free and fair trade,” says Blackwell. He says governments must work with investors and the industry to enable rapid deployment of clean, efficient wind power to support economic growth, resilience, and prosperity.

The report forecasts a compound average growth rate of 8.8 percent for the wind industry, projecting an additional 981 GW of wind energy capacity across the globe by 2030. GWEC’s Market Intelligence service sees consecutive record years through to 2030, with 138 GW of new capacity in 2025, 140 GW in 2026, 160 GW in 2027, 167 in 2028, and a leap in 2029 and 2030 to 183 GW and 194 GW respectively.

GWEC’s forecast for 2025-2030 sees offshore wind rise from 16 GW in 2025 to 34 GW, with offshore moving from 11.8 percent of new capacity to 17.5 percent of new capacity by the end of the decade.

This year’s Global Wind Report focuses on four key challenges the market faces, including financial and macroeconomic headwinds, trade barriers and market fragmentation, inadequate procurement and auctioning frameworks, and challenging investment conditions in the global wind energy supply chain.