The German government has approved a draft law that obliges federal states to allocate between 1.8% and 2.2% of their land area for wind projects by the end of 2032 (0.5% for city-states). The overall target for Germany is set at 2% in 2032, with an interim goal of 1.4% by the end of 2026. Currently, only 0.8% of Germany's area is designated for onshore wind projects, with less than 0.5% actually available. The text also opens protected landscape areas to onshore wind projects. The bill will be sent to the lower house of parliament Bundestag by the end of June 2022 and the text should become effective in early 2023.
Germany aims to increase its onshore wind capacity to 115 GW by 2030. Onshore wind accounts for 25% of Germany's installed capacity, with 56.2 GW at end-2021. The deployment of wind capacity slowed down in recent years, with only 1.5 GW/year added between 2018 and 2021 compared to 4.3 GW/year over the 2014-2017 period.