Winds of Resilience: Europe must accelerate wind energy to stay competitive and sovereign

Europe’s wind industry has been one of its greatest industrial achievements. For decades, European engineers and companies have defined global standards in turbine technology, offshore construction and system integration. The sector contributed in 2024 more than €54 billion to Europe’s GDP and exports €13.8 billion worth of high-value equipment and services each year[1]. These are not abstract numbers: they reflect hundreds of thousands of jobs, strong regional value chains, and an industry that Europe built from the ground up and still leads in quality, reliability and innovation.

But the conditions around this success story are changing. Investment signals are weakening, long-term contracts are becoming harder to close, and projects are frequently slowed down by complex permitting and delayed grid connections. None of this means wind is any less vital. It means Europe is struggling to scale it at the pace that global competition now demands.

China, meanwhile, is expanding with extraordinary speed. Its wind industry reached roughly ¥905 billion (≈€109 billion)[2] in economic value in 2024, driven by a massive domestic market that allows turbine manufacturers to move quickly, cut costs and deploy technology at scale. China’s rise does not erase Europe’s strengths, but it narrows the margin. And this is where the comparison becomes uncomfortable, because Europe has seen this before.

In solar power, Europe invented the technology, built early factories and led the market. But fragmented regulations, slow industrial action and a lack of coordinated strategy allowed others, especially China, to scale faster, cheaper and more strategically. Europe lost not because it lacked innovation, but because it lacked speed, unity and the political recognition that clean-tech industries are also geopolitical assets. Within a decade, Europe became largely dependent on imported solar equipment. That dependency still shapes our energy system today.

The risk of repeating this mistake in wind is real. If Europe fails to act quickly, it could once again pioneer breakthroughs only to watch another region industrialise them faster. Wind is too important - economically, socially and strategically, to let that happen. This industry is central to Europe’s energy independence, because it provides a home-grown resource that insulates us from volatile fossil markets. It is central to competitiveness, because Europe’s future industries will only invest where they can secure abundant, stable and affordable clean electricity. And it is central to sovereignty, because losing industrial leadership in a technology as critical as wind would undermine Europe’s ability to control its own energy future.

Europe still has a clear advantage in offshore wind, maritime know-how, floating wind innovation and high-quality engineering. When looking at the global market outside China, European firms remain the dominant suppliers… largely because China’s domestic wind market is effectively closed to foreign manufacturers and absorbs nearly all of China’s own turbine production. In other words, China is a world of its own, while Europe competes, and wins, in the open global market. But to maintain this position, Europe must shift from slow, fragmented processes to a strategy built on scale, alignment and urgency. That means simpler and faster permitting, predictable frameworks for investors, stronger grid planning, and a coherent single market that treats wind as strategic infrastructure rather than just another energy project.

 

Figure 1: Global market share of wind turbine manufactures, excluding the Chinese market (Source: ETIPWind, 2024)

 

Europe has the talent, the companies and the technological edge to remain a global leader. What it needs now is the political will and speed to match that ambition. The window is still open - but not for long. The wind industry we built can continue to anchor Europe’s competitiveness and sovereignty, but only if we move decisively now, not once the race is already lost.

At Ortelius, we map how the world economy is changing and help turn climate ambition into the industrial foundations of future prosperity.

Sources:

1. European Technology & Innovation Platform for Wind Energy. (2025). ETIPWind competitiveness report 2025. https://etipwind.eu/wp-content/uploads/files/publications/ETIPWind-competitiveness-report-2025.pdf
2. Patey, L., & Tsang, B. (2025, July 1). Last gasp: Securing Europe’s wind industry from dependence on China. European Council on Foreign Relations. https://ecfr.eu/publication/last-gasp-securing-europes-wind-industry-from-dependence-on-china/
3. Myllyvirta, L., Qin, Q., & Qiu, C. (2025, February 19). Analysis: Clean-energy contributed a record 10 % of China’s GDP in 2024. Carbon Brief. https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-clean-energy-contributed-a-record-10-of-chinas-gdp-in-2024/
4. (2025, November 4). Decrease in renewable PPAs is a bad signal for Europe’s competitiveness and energy security. Retrieved from https://windeurope.org/news/decrease-in-renewable-ppas-is-a-bad-signal-for-europes-competitiveness-and-energy-security/

 

[1] According to the European Wind Energy Competitiveness Report (ETIPWind, 2024)

[2] According to CarbonBrief on the contribution of clean energy to China’s GDP