
Breadcrumbs
Ready, Set, Go: Europe's race for wind and solar
European countries must increase the pace of wind and solar deployment to help ditch Russian fossil fuels and put the region on track for its climate commitments.
Highlights
2x
By mid-decade, annual wind and solar capacity additions must double forecast to align with 1.5C
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Only 4 out of 27 EU countries are on track to install the required wind capacity by 2030
120
Obtaining permits for a wind project can take up to 120 months, five times longer than the EU's binding limit
About
In this report, Ember analyses the deployment pace of wind and solar energy across the European Union and compares this to a 1.5C compatible pathway from our recent modelling. This study delves deeper into key countries’ renewable capacity expansion plans, comparing on-the-ground deployment rates with 1.5C aligned capacities to 2030 taken from modelling results. This is used to identify whether countries are currently on track, alongside a discussion of the top reasons for underperformance.
Executive summary
EU countries must go faster on wind and solar to deliver 1.5C aligned 2030 capacities
While the European Union keeps advancing renewables targets, on-the-ground deployment needs to accelerate to meet them.
Energy & Climate Data Analyst, Ember
Europe no longer lacks renewables ambition, but it is now facing an implementation gap. Higher targets have not yet translated into accelerated deployment on the ground. Europe needs to urgently buckle down on removing permitting barriers to unleash the full potential of renewables.

Analysis
The EU must accelerate wind and solar deployment
Europe increased its renewable energy ambitions. Now the focus must move towards deployment at speed or risk missing key benchmarks.
Pierre Tardieu Chief Policy Officer, WindEurope
Europe is only building half the wind capacity it needs to deliver on its energy security and climate targets. National governments can fix this by simplifying and accelerating permitting. With tough winters ahead, speeding up the deployment of home-grown energy is not optional. It’s indispensable.
Conclusion
Focus must shift to deployment
To keep up with REPowerEU and 1.5C-aligned ambition, attention must now turn to removing barriers to installation.
At an EU level, expected wind and solar deployment rates are below those required for 1.5C, reaching only 50% of necessary additions in 2026. Of the EU member states, only a handful are reaching required wind deployment rates, and key countries for solar deployment are also lagging behind. A crucial barrier to wind and solar deployment is the permitting process time, which in most countries exceeds the EU legislative limit of two years.
To begin tackling barriers to deployment, the existing two year permitting limit, stated in the Renewable Energy Directive (RED), needs to be enforced by the European Commission. To align with REPowerEU and 1.5C, it is equally important that the amendment to the RED is passed this autumn, raising the EU’s 2030 renewable energy target to 45%.
Further, the 1.5C-aligned capacity expansion pathways should also be transposed into the updated National Energy and Climate Plans (NECPs) during the formal review process in 2023. At a national level, auction volumes should be significantly increased to capacities in-line with 2030 targets. Renewable energy ‘go-to’ areas, taking into account environmental and social concerns, should be designated as suggested in REPowerEU where permit-granting should not exceed one year. Finally, permitting processes should be streamlined through investments in personnel and digitalisation to ensure they are compliant with the two year limit.
Slow wind and solar deployment will only exacerbate the current cost and security crisis the EU’s energy sector is facing. Rapid expansion of these technologies will help the EU to replace expensive and uncertain fossil fuel imports with clean and secure sources of energy, whilst also reducing electricity prices.
Annex
Country-level wind and solar auction results
* Deployment deadline is the time after the auction by which the renewable project must be commissioned – it is assumed that this will be the date the auctioned capacity comes online. Where unavailable, this is estimated as two years for solar, three years for onshore wind and five years for offshore wind.
** Deployment deadline of 84 months
*** The Netherlands does not use renewable auctions for onshore wind and solar. Instead it has a subsidy scheme with a set budget rather than capacity.
Supporting Material
Methodology
Estimating wind & solar growth scenarios
Throughout this report at the EU level, a fixed percentage growth in total installed capacity using 2021 as the baseline has been used to estimate the pathway to 1.5C 2030 capacity. This growth scenario is intended to act as a realistic benchmark for deployment rates from 2022 – 2030 and was decided upon after discussion with developers, analysis of current growth rates, and a comparison of other options. These options included fixed GW annual additions and increasing annual GW additions followed by constant capacity increase (similar to the schedule outlined in the German Easter Package). At EU-level, total installed solar capacity currently shows a fixed percentage growth pattern – with more and more gigawatts being added every year. For wind, capacity is currently increasing by roughly 10 GW/year. However, to reach 2030 targets at constant GW additions, this would have to jump to more than 30 GW/year from 2022. A fixed percentage growth in total installed capacity scenario requires adding around 20 GW/year from 2022 (a more realistic number based on WindEurope’s projected net additions of 15 GW in 2022) , rising to 45 GW/year by 2030.
At the country level, a fixed percentage growth rate in total installed capacity is also used. In this case, forecast data is used to calculate the average yearly percentage increase from data between 2021 and 2026. This is then extended to estimate 2030 capacity which is used to determine whether countries are on track for required capacities.
Solar forecast data
Solar forecast data was taken from the IEA Renewables 2021 report, released in December 2021. This data set was chosen after comparison with solar auction results from key countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Poland) to cross-check the figures, and due to the public availability of country-level data alongside EU numbers. The Renewables 2021 report included an accelerated scenario which assumes certain market and policy advancements can occur in the next 1 – 2 years. For this report, the IEA’s main case has been used to display what would happen in a ‘business as usual’ scenario. Industry believes higher solar growth is possible. In their report ‘EU Market Outlook for Solar Power 2021-2025’ from December 2021, SolarPower Europe outlined a medium case scenario which sees the EU-27 adding 41 GW (ac) solar capacity in 2025. This is significantly higher than the IEA forecast of 21 GW (ac) in 2025, however, combined with forecast wind deployment, it would still leave the EU 20% behind 1.5C compatible additions. There are also supply chain and skills shortage issues in the solar industry which must be addressed to accelerate solar at pace.
Wind forecast data
Wind forecast data is taken from WindEurope’s report, ‘2021 Statistics and the outlook for 2022-2026‘ which was released in February 2022. Net additions were used from the realistic expectations scenario.
Acknowledgements
Harriet Fox, Paweł Czyżak, Alison Candlin, Sarah Brown
Thank you to the following for their contributionsBNE, Elettricità Futura, Enel, Green Genius, Holland Solar, Statkraft
Photo credit: Joan Sullivan / Climate Visuals Countdown