Portugal Put Up 199 Megawatts of Onshore Wind in Six Months, Enough for a Place in Europe's Top Ten
WindEurope's autumn report puts Europe on course for a record year at 8.8 gigawatts in the first half, up 30 percent. Portugal should reach about 250 megawatts for the full year and add 2.1 gigawatts by 2030, the twelfth largest jump in the EU.
Portugal added 199 megawatts of onshore wind capacity in the first half of 2026, enough to place it among the ten European countries that expanded fastest. The figure comes from WindEurope's autumn report, published on Tuesday, which finds the continent on course for a record year.
Europe installed 8.8 gigawatts of new wind capacity in the six months to June, 30 percent more than in the same period of 2025. The association puts that at roughly seven million households' worth of electricity, and the equivalent of displacing 25 LNG cargoes a year. It expects 24 gigawatts across the full year.
Where Portugal sits
Onshore installations across Europe reached 6.5 gigawatts by June, half a gigawatt more than a year earlier. Germany alone put up 2.4 gigawatts of that, more than a third. Spain came second, though on less capacity than in the first half of 2025. Turkey, Portugal and the United Kingdom occupy the last three places in the top ten.
Portugal's 199 megawatts should reach about 250 megawatts by the close of the year. Between 2026 and 2030 the association expects the country to add a further 2.1 gigawatts of onshore capacity, the twelfth largest projected increase among the 27 EU member states. Spain is forecast to add 7.2 gigawatts over the same window, and Germany 45.
WindEurope also names Denmark, Ukraine, Poland and France, alongside Portugal, as countries where installation volumes rose significantly.
Offshore is a longer wait
Only four countries added offshore capacity in the first half: Germany with 1,060 megawatts, the United Kingdom with 620, Denmark with 495 and France with 142. Portugal added none.
The association does give Portugal, Spain and Turkey a mention here, noting that all three are advancing regulatory frameworks and auction designs that could unlock investment. Its own assessment is that these will not register before the end of the decade, and will contribute after 2030. For a country whose offshore ambitions have been announced repeatedly, that is a sober timetable.
The auction pipeline
Across Europe the picture is one of governments moving faster than construction. "Europe has never auctioned so much wind capacity in a single year," the report says: 17 gigawatts tendered in the first six months, with a further 26 gigawatts expected in the coming months. Nine billion euros went into the sector in the first half, capacity that will show up in later years.
WindEurope is blunt that structural problems persist, with permitting policy choices at the top of the list. That is the constraint Portugal knows best.
What this means for expats
- Where the turbines can go is shrinking: Portugal's acceleration-zone map fell from 7 percent of the mainland to 4 percent, with each council held to 1 percent of its own land.
- Local resistance is real: Sabugal rejected two planned zones outright over fire and land-use concerns.
- Wind is no longer the leading source: solar was Portugal's largest source of electricity in July for the first time, which is where most new capacity is going.
- The storage question follows: the government has a storage plan out for consultation targeting 3.9 gigawatts of pumped hydro and 3 gigawatts of batteries by 2030.
- If you live near a park: the Tax Authority has reclassified wind and solar parks as single properties, which changes what your council collects from them.
