Wind Energy Market: Global Installations, Capacity and Offshore Wind

GWEC's Global Wind Report 2025 shows a record 117 GW of new wind capacity was installed in 2024 [1]. This brought global cumulative wind capacity to 1,136 GW, an increase of 11% compared with the previous year [2].

IRENA, which uses its own statistics, reports wind capacity of 1,133 GW at the end of 2024, with growth of 11.1% [5]. IRENA notes that wind expansion was once again dominated by China and the United States [5].

The IEA estimates annual wind additions were stable at around 120 GW in 2024 [6]. Wind generation increased by about 180 TWh in 2024, according to the IEA [6].

Wind is growing more slowly than solar. IRENA reports that solar and wind together made up 96.6% of net renewable additions in 2024, with over three-quarters of the expansion in solar [5]. Ember reports that solar overtook wind in global electricity generation for the first time in 2025 [7].

GWEC's Global Offshore Wind Report 2025 puts total offshore installations at 83.2 GW at the end of 2024, which was 7.3% of global wind capacity [3]. The offshore market grew on average by 10% a year over the past decade [3].

China is the largest offshore market, with half of cumulative global installations, followed by the UK [3]. Germany, the Netherlands and Taiwan (China) complete the top five, and Denmark dropped out of the top five for the first time [3].

GWEC reports offshore capacity reached 92.5 GW by the end of 2025 [4]. That is an increase of 9.3 GW over end-2024 (FREEE.REPORT calculation: 92.5 GW minus 83.2 GW).

GWEC says the 2024 momentum is not enough to align with the COP28 agreement to triple global renewable capacity by 2030 [1]. It sets out a roadmap to scale to the 320 GW per year of wind needed by 2030 [1].

The report names macroeconomic pressures, fragmented trade, supply chain misalignment and disinformation as critical challenges for the industry [1].

Installation and cumulative capacity figures come from GWEC's Global Wind Report 2025 web page and report PDF [1][2]. Offshore figures come from the summary of GWEC's Global Offshore Wind Report 2025 published by Tethys (PNNL) [3] and GWEC's offshore report page [4]. IRENA [5] and IEA [6] figures are shown for comparison; they use different methods, so totals differ slightly from GWEC.

FREEE.REPORT calculations: onshore share of wind capacity at end-2024 (100% minus the 7.3% offshore share reported by GWEC) and offshore growth in 2025 (92.5 GW minus 83.2 GW). Capacity is in gigawatts (GW).