Can Flanders still meet its 2030 onshore wind target after adding only two turbines?

Flanders added only two onshore wind turbines between 1 January and 1 June 2026, in Arendonk and Tessenderlo-Ham, according to figures Flemish Environment Minister Jo Brouns

For households and businesses in Flanders, the issue reaches beyond the appearance of the landscape. More domestically generated electricity can reduce exposure to volatile imported gas, while additional renewable capacity will be needed as transport, heating and industry electrify. Yet turbines take years to move from an application to operation, meaning decisions made now shape the electricity system near the end of the decade.

The slowdown has become increasingly visible. De Standaard-group newspaper Het Nieuwsblad reported that annual additions fell from 49 turbines in 2022 to 17 in 2023, 20 in 2024 and around a dozen in 2025. Industry federation ODE Vlaanderen separately recorded 13 new turbines and roughly 50 MW of additional capacity in 2025, bringing the operational fleet to 722 turbines and 1,929 MW. Small differences between reported year-end totals can reflect updates and registration timing.

Those timing effects matter. The Flemish Energy and Climate Agency, VEKA, warns that recently commissioned turbines may enter network operators’ data several months late and that the newest quarter is therefore normally understated. Brouns, a CD&V minister, consequently called the two-turbine figure highly provisional. His office said the current Flemish government had approved 75 turbines, including 44 since revised siting rules took effect, and argued that construction totals can swing sharply when an entire wind farm happens to enter service.

Groen parliamentarian Nadia Naji reads the same evidence differently. She argues that 2026 risks becoming the weakest year on record and links the deterioration partly to rules introduced in April 2025 requiring a turbine in relation to residential areas to stand at least three times its tip height from the nearest home. For a 200-metre turbine, that example implies 600 metres. The rules were accompanied by greater flexibility for projects on industrial land, while Brouns disputes that they have reduced permitting.

Ghent University energy specialist Joannes Laveyne offered a third explanation to Het Nieuwsblad. He pointed to investment uncertainty after an earlier withdrawal of support, rather than treating the new distance rule as the sole cause. Flemish Energy and Climate Minister Melissa Depraetere subsequently restored access to green-power certificates for qualifying projects. Laveyne expects that intervention to help, but says the strongest sites are increasingly occupied and that the large expansion rates of a decade ago are unlikely to return.

That shifts attention towards repowering: replacing older machines with fewer, more powerful turbines. Motorway corridors and industrial zones may offer further space, but local opposition, environmental assessments and litigation can still lengthen the journey from permit to construction. ODE Vlaanderen says stable investment conditions and more legally robust, faster permit procedures are essential. Residents near proposed sites, however, retain legitimate interests concerning noise, shadow flicker, landscape and nature, which helps explain why faster approval cannot simply mean removing scrutiny.

The arithmetic is unforgiving. Flanders is aiming for about 2,800 MW of onshore wind by 2030. The end-2025 total was reported at roughly 1,929 to 1,940 MW, leaving around 860 MW to add. Naji calculates that approximately 175 MW must now be installed each year, against an average annual gain of about 59 MW over the previous three years. Brouns and Depraetere maintain that the target remains achievable, but neither has yet demonstrated through completed projects how the present gap will close.

The European backdrop increases the pressure without changing the essentially Flemish nature of the story. In January 2026, the European Commission said Belgium’s updated National Energy and Climate Plan had become more ambitious but still lacked sufficient ambition and deployment trajectories for renewable energy. EU renewable targets are collective, while the practical choices over Flemish onshore siting, permits and support largely sit with the regional government.

The next meaningful test will therefore be the full-year 2026 total, after delayed registrations are incorporated. Attention will also turn to whether the restored certificates unlock final investment decisions, how many of the 75 permitted turbines reach construction, and whether repowering can supply capacity faster than entirely new sites. Two turbines do not by themselves settle the year, but they make the distance between political approval and steel in the ground impossible to ignore.