BERLIN (dpa-AFX) - The industry believes that much more speed is needed in the construction of new wind turbines in Germany if targets are to be met. Although there is a trend reversal, the measures initiated so far are not sufficient. The addition of onshore wind turbines last year was still too low, said Dennis Rendschmidt, managing director of VDMA Power Systems, on Wednesday.

In 2022, 551 new wind turbines with a total capacity of 2.4 gigawatts were connected to the grid in Germany - 25 percent more than in the previous year. Because old turbines were also dismantled, the so-called net addition was around 2.1 gigawatts. The addition is significantly below that of the record years 2014 to 2017.

According to Rendschmidt, various measures are needed to steer toward an expansion path that is necessary to achieve targets: more land must be made available, approval bottlenecks must be overcome, and transportation must be made easier. The goal of adding 4.5 gigawatts (GW) this year is not achievable, he said. This is due to the fact that too few projects have been approved. The industry is forecasting an increase of 2.7 to 3.2 GW.

At an average of 23.5 months, the approval period is still far too long, said Hermann Albers, president of the German Wind Energy Association. He added that the German government must present the announced law to speed up procedures as quickly as possible. "We need LNG speed for wind energy as well." New terminals for importing liquefied natural gas (LNG) in Germany had been built in less than a year.

Albers also again lamented a sharp north-south divide in expansion. Last year, Schleswig-Holstein, Lower Saxony, Brandenburg and North Rhine-Westphalia together accounted for 77 percent of the expansion. The two southernmost German states, Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, had installed particularly little new capacity in relation to their area. The south must now deliver.

In 2022, the German government passed extensive legislative changes to accelerate the expansion of renewable energies. The aim is to increase the share of green electricity in electricity consumption to at least 80 percent by 2030. Last year, the figure was around 47 percent. According to industry figures, there are currently more than 28,000 onshore wind turbines in Germany with a total capacity of around 58 gigawatts. The German government's target is 115 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2030. Onshore wind power plays a key role in the energy transition, the replacement of fossil fuels such as coal with renewables from wind and solar./hoe/DP/nas