- Renewable energy accounted for 30% of the world’s electricity in 2023
- The UK has given the green light to the world’s largest offshore wind in Scotland
- Wind turbines generate 7% of the world’s electricity in 2023
- Norway is home to the world’s biggest onshore wind farm
The world is swiftly moving away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, like wind and solar. In fact, renewable energy accounted for more than 30% of the world’s electricity for the first time in 2023, thanks to an increase in solar and wind power.
This is only likely to increase, as governments continue to invest heavily in renewable energy plants, like wind farms. Wind farms help provide vast amounts of clean energy without polluting the atmosphere.
We’ve looked into the largest of these wind farms, including the recently-announced offshore wind farm that will be built off the coast of Scotland. In this guide, we’ll cover how many turbines they have, future expansion possibilities and the state of the existing turbines.
Wind power is one of the most easily accessible renewable energy sources in the world and its capacity to provide electricity is increasing. In fact, wind turbines generated 7.8% of the world’s electricity in 2023, more than double the share in 2015 (3.5%).
As well as small domestic wind turbines, the overwhelming majority of wind-generated electricity comes from scale wind farms. These are wind energy projects that produce more than one megawatt of electricity. This is typically in the form of onshore wind farms, which account for 93% of installed wind capacity, compared to just 7% for offshore installations.
With this in mind, what are the biggest wind farms in the world?
Forsen Vind – Norway (onshore)
Norway is well-known for its gas and oil supplies, but it’s also using the huge profits gained from fossil fuels to invest in renewable energy – particularly wind.
The largest renewable investment, by far, is the Forsen Vind wind farm, an onshore installation, located in central Norway. The project, which started in 2016, cost £945m to set up and is the second-biggest wind farm of its kind in Europe.
Since Forsen Vind began operation, it has more than doubled Norway’s wind power generation capacity. A total of 278 turbines provide 1.05 gigawatts (GW) of clean electricity, or 3,400 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year – enough to power close to 800,000 homes in the country.
In comparison – the third – and fourth – largest onshore wind farms in Europe, in Romania and the UK, have capacities of 0.6 GW and 0.53 GW respectively.
Jaisalmer Wind Park – India
Jaisalmer Wind Park is India’s largest wind farm with 1.6 GW of installed capacity. It consists of several types of wind turbines, with some having capacities of just 350 kilowatts (kW), all the way up to 2.1 megawatts.
The wind farm is located in Rajasthan, which is one of India’s windiest locations. As a result, this makes the place the perfect spot for wind power facilities, which is why 5.1 GW of installed capacity is currently homed here.
Jaisalmer unlike Muppandal – which is India’s oldest and second-largest wind farm – (see below) is much newer, having started in 2001. It also has a larger portfolio of more advanced turbines capable of outputting more power.
Muppandal Wind Farm – India
Muppandal Wind Farm in Tamil Nadu, India is the country’s second-largest operational onshore wind farm when analysing installed capacity, with a current capacity of 1.5 GW.
These turbines range from 200 kilowatts (kW) to 1,650 kW and accounts for approximately 25% of India’s total installed wind power capacity of 40.12 GW.
The wind farm has been operational since 1986 and has investments from the Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency and are some of the oldest turbines in the country.
This does pose a challenge for India, as many of them are running well past their expected life cycles. Most wind turbines are designed to operate for 20-25 years before they need replacing, meaning Muppandal’s turbines have been running for almost double their life expectancy.
Alta Wind Energy Center – United States
The US has an impressive renewable energy portfolio, with a combined capacity of 352 GW, giving the US the second-largest renewable energy capacity in the world.
It’s a powerhouse in terms of wind power too – and the Alta Wind Energy Center in California is the perfect example of why.
With a capacity of 1.55 GW, the Alta Wind Energy Center is the third-largest onshore wind energy project in the world. This power is generated by 600 turbines, which were provided by GE Renewable Energy, one of the biggest global wind turbine manufacturers.
This wind farm cost £2.4 billion to build, but its aim to reduce carbon dioxide emission by 5.2 million tonnes each year has been worth the investment. For context, that’s roughly the annual CO2 emissions of over 365,000 Americans.
What’s more, the Alta Wind Energy Center is expected to increase its installed capacity to over 3 GW within the next 10 years.
Markbygden Wind Farm – Sweden
Sweden’s Markbydgen Wind Farm is Europe’s largest individual wind farm and the second-largest in the entire world, providing 2 GW of wind power capacity (enough to power almost 1.5 million UK homes).
Markbyden is spread over approximately 173sq miles, which is larger than the entire landscape of Stockholm city.
The farm’s capacity is still set to increase to 4 GW by 2025, which means 3 million Swedish homes will be powered. This project is a huge part of Sweden’s drive to reach 100% renewable energy by 2040 – an ambition the country is already well on its way to achieving. As of 2022, 68.4% of Sweden’s energy came from renewable energy sources. Offshore wind farms
Offshore wind farms are popular in countries that have large coastal areas, as they tend to generate more winds. This is why the UK and other countries invest more in offshore wind farms, especially as these countries are on the smaller end and land can be scarce.
Below are two of the largest offshore wind farms in the UK, one in Yorkshire and the second that has recently been given the greenlight in Scotland.
Hornsea Offshore Wind Farm – United Kingdom
The UK tops the leaderboard when it comes to offshore wind farms, hosting seven of the top 10 largest installations in the world.
Its most impressive offshore wind farm – at the time of writing – is located in Hornsea, Yorkshire, which has a combined capacity of 2.6 GW and powers over 2 million UK homes.
Hornsea was split into two projects and uses some of the latest and best wind turbine technologies to generate vast amounts of clean electricity, with the average power output of each turbine being 8 MW. For context, the average for onshore wind turbines is 2.5 MW).
Alas, all this power requires a vast amount of space. Hornsea covers more than 300sq miles, which is more than 10x the size of Hull.
It’s just the beginning for Hornsea as well, which first started generating power in 2014. Two more phases, labelled Hornsea Three and Hornsea Four, will expand the total capacity to around 6GW – enough to power 4.5 million homes.
Peterhead, Aberdeenshire – Scotland
While this one hasn’t been built yet, it was announced in April 2024 that the world’s biggest wind farm would be placed off the coast of Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.
The offshore wind farm – Greenvolt – will have up to 35 floating turbines and provide 560 megawatts of energy. To put this into perspective, the current largest wind farm is off the coast of Norway and only has 11 turbines and generates around 88 megawatts of energy.
Greenvolt is owned 50% each by Aberdeen-based Flotation Energy and Norwegian firm Vargroon, and is Europe’s first commercial-scale floating windfarm.
This windfarm will generate up to £3bn in investment, according to Sir Ian Wood, the north-east energy tycoon. He claims the project will also create hundreds of jobs.
While the wind farm will largely be going to offshore oil and gas platforms, the farm will also be connected to the UK grid.
However, its approval by Marine Scotland will help us ensure the North Sea Transition’s Deal target of halving the UK’s offshore greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 are met.
Summary
Wind power capacity is becoming more popular, as more governments transition to more renewable energy sources. One of these will be large scale wind farms – both onshore and offshore – and will play a big role in helping each country meet their net zero targets.
Wind farms are cost-effective ways to generate renewable energy and are cheaper to run when compared to coal and gas power plants. They also provide plenty of job opportunities, helping to boost economic growth, too.
The UK continues to have the world’s largest offshore wind farms, thanks to the amount of wind available in coastal areas of the country – especially in winter. There are geographical factors to consider.
Overall, the reason the UK is the best place to build offshore wind farms is because of our shallow seas and ample access to the coastline.
Although the UK has the largest offshore wind farms, China has the largest amount of wind power, with a capacity of 329 GW. This is enough to meet the UK’s electricity needs seven times over, but still not enough to meet the demands of China’s huge population. Currently, however, China produces around 282 GW.
