Wind power in the European Union

As of December 2014, installed capacity of wind power in the European Union totaled 128,751 megawatts (MW). The EU wind industry has had a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10% between the years 2000 and 2013. In 2014, a total of 11,791 MW of wind power was installed, representing 32% of all new power capacity. In a normal wind year the wind power capacity installed by early 2014 would produce 257 TWh of electricity, enough to supply 8% of the EU’s electricity consumption.

In the future, wind power is likely to continue to grow in the European Union. According to a European Environment Agency report, wind energy can play a major role in achieving the European renewable energy targets.

The European Wind Energy Association estimates that 230 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity will be installed in Europe by 2020, consisting of 190 GW onshore and 40 GW offshore. This would produce 14-17% of the EU's electricity, avoiding 333 million tonnes of CO₂ per year and saving Europe €28 billion a year in avoided fuel costs.

Research from a wide variety of sources in various European countries shows that support for wind power is consistently about 80 per cent among the general public.

Wind power in Denmark provides some 39 percent of Danish domestic electricity and Denmark is a leading wind power nation in the world. The Danes were pioneers in developing commercial wind power during the 1970s and today almost half of the wind turbines around the world are produced by Danish manufacturers such as Vestas and Siemens Wind Power.

The Danish wind turbine industry is the world’s largest and 90% of the wind turbines manufactured in Denmark are sold to international markets. In 2003, the Danish manufacturers had a total world market share of approximately 38%, generating a combined turnover of almost 3 billion Euro and maintaining over 20,000 people employed in the industry, from wind turbine factories to maintenance and research.

The development of wind power in Denmark has been characterised by a close collaboration between publicly financed research and industry in key areas such as research and development, certification, testing, and the preparation of standards.

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