Governments racing to hit climate targets. Fossil fuel supply chains under strain. Electricity demand climbing faster than grids can keep up. The pressure on renewable energy to deliver — reliably, at scale, and fast — has rarely been greater.
Against that backdrop, the wind industry just posted a number that’s hard to ignore: 28,395 turbines installed worldwide in a single year, a 23% jump in units from the year before. In capacity terms, the leap was even steeper.
A record year by every measure
The headline figure from GWEC’s 2025 supply-side data is 178 GW of wind turbine capacity mechanically installed in a single year — a 40% increase over 2024. To put that in context, the industry added more capacity in twelve months than most countries have built across their entire energy histories.
Those 178 GW came from 28,395 individual turbines, installed by 23 manufacturers operating across multiple continents. Not all of it is generating electricity yet: 165 GW was connected to the grid by year-end, while 13 GW of newly installed capacity was still awaiting commissioning. That pipeline of near-ready capacity suggests 2026 grid connection numbers could also come in strong.
Wind power now meets 9.5% of global electricity demand. The trajectory behind that share, though, is anything but modest.
The ‘100 GW club’ grows to five members
One of the more striking milestones embedded in the data is the expansion of what might be called the 100 GW club — manufacturers that have each accumulated more than 100 gigawatts of cumulative installations over their operating histories.
Vestas leads the group and, in 2025, became the first turbine manufacturer to surpass 200 GW in cumulative installations, reaching more than 201 GW. Goldwind follows in second place at 163 GW, ahead of Siemens Gamesa at 148 GW and GE Vernova at 125 GW. The newest member is Envision, which crossed the 100 GW threshold for the first time, finishing 2025 at 103 GW.
The practical meaning of these numbers is worth pausing on. GWEC CEO Ben Backwell noted that 100 GW is “enough electricity to power many of the world’s largest economies.” Five companies now each carry that kind of installed base — a measure of how far the industry’s depth and experience has grown.
China dominates new installations, but Western OEMs hold their ground
For the first time, all five of the top turbine suppliers by capacity installed in 2025 were Chinese companies. Goldwind led with 29.7 GW, followed by Envision at 21.8 GW, Windey at 19.8 GW, Mingyang at 18.6 GW, and SANY at 15.1 GW. China as a whole accounted for 67% of global market share, with more than 130 GW mechanically installed domestically.
That concentration reflects an extraordinary domestic build-out. Chinese manufacturers held a 99.96% share of their home market in 2025 — a near-total lock on the world’s largest wind market.
Outside China, the picture looks quite different. Vestas led international installations with 12.9 GW across 36 countries, making it the world’s most geographically diversified supplier. Nordex Group followed at 7.7 GW, then GE Vernova at 5.8 GW and Siemens Gamesa at 5.4 GW. In Europe, manufacturers from Denmark, Germany, and Spain maintained a 94.5% regional market share — actually 2.5 percentage points higher than the year before — while GE Vernova and Vestas together held 93% of the US market.
Turbines are getting bigger — and smarter in design
The machines themselves are evolving as quickly as the market around them. In 2025, the average turbine size surpassed 6 MW globally for the first time. Onshore turbines averaged 6,160 kW; offshore units reached an average of 10,312 kW. Larger rotors and taller towers extract more energy from fewer installations — a trend that improves both project economics and land use efficiency.
Technology preferences are shifting in a notable direction too. Hybrid drive — or medium-speed — turbines increased their global market share from 29% to 37% in a single year. Combined with conventional high-speed geared systems, geared-drive turbines now account for 95.6% of the global market, up 4.3 percentage points year-on-year. Direct-drive systems saw their share fall to 4.4%. The industry appears to be converging on geared architectures, at least for now.
What needs to happen next
The 2025 data is encouraging, but GWEC’s own framing of it is deliberately cautious. Ben Backwell pointed to “persistent barriers” — permitting delays, bureaucratic red tape, and grid development bottlenecks — as the factors most likely to constrain future growth, regardless of how much manufacturing capacity the industry builds.
Early sales data from 2026 suggests order momentum is continuing, pointing toward another strong installation year ahead. The gap between what manufacturers can deploy and what grid infrastructure and permitting systems can absorb, however, remains a real constraint in many markets.
One dynamic worth watching closely is the international footprint of Chinese OEMs. Despite their scale, 93.4% of their 2025 installations were domestic. Of the roughly 9.3 GW installed outside China, more than half went to Asia. Their presence in Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas remains limited — for now. Whether that changes over the next few years may be one of the defining questions shaping how the global wind market evolves.
Carlos is an engineer with strong expertise in technical and industrial topics. He previously worked at international companies such as Siemens and speaks Spanish, German, English, and Italian.
