In response to the war in Ukraine, Germany and the European Union want to become less dependent on Russian oil and gas supplies in the long term.

This can be done by sourcing the raw materials from other countries, but such a switch is far from easy in the absence of pipelines or LNG terminals.

After all, suppliers like Qatar cannot gear their oil and gas deliveries entirely to the EU overnight.

Another option is to do without fossil fuels altogether and switch to wind, sun or hydropower as quickly as possible.

Although the energy transition will not happen overnight either, the Russian attack on Ukraine is likely to speed up many processes.

The federal government is speeding up.

At the beginning of April, a legislative package was introduced to accelerate the expansion of wind and solar energy.

In this way, by 2030 at least 80 percent of the electricity consumed should come from renewable energies.

Five years later, in 2035, the electricity supply is to be covered almost entirely by renewable energies.

For comparison: Last year, this share was still around 42 percent.

In the specific case of onshore wind energy, the expansion rates are to be increased to a level of 10 gigawatts (GW) per year, so that by 2030 a total of around 115 GW of wind capacity should be installed in Germany.

In addition, there are plans to remove significant obstacles to onshore wind energy through further legislation.

Until now, these obstacles have included the fact that not enough space was available, for example for reasons of noise protection or species protection.

Expansion of wind power is progressing

Among others, the Danish specialist for onshore wind turbines, Vestas Wind Systems, will benefit from the prospect of subsidies for onshore wind energy.

The worldwide expansion of wind energy is already making good progress.

According to Bloomberg-NEF, 2021 was another record year.

Accordingly, new wind turbines with a capacity of almost 100 GW were set up last year.

83 percent of the new plants were added onshore, while Vestas was able to regain the top position in this area with a total of 15.2 GW.

This put the Danes around 3.2 GW ahead of number two, the Goldwind group from China.

Third place went to the Siemens Energy subsidiary Siemens Gamesa.

According to Bloomberg NEF analyst Isabelle Edwards, wind energy was able to prove again last year that the industry can achieve sustainable growth.

In view of the global climate goals, the potential is likely to be great - even if the industry is struggling with problems such as the consequences of Covid-19, higher costs (not only for raw materials) and global supply chain problems in the short term.