The European Union installed 9,616 megawatts of wind energy in 2011, or 21 percent of the bloc’s new power capacity, the European Wind Energy Association said.

Investment totaled 12.6 billion euros ($16.4 billion), about the same as in 2010, the Brussels-based lobby group EWEA said today in a report on its website. Germany installed more than a fifth of the bloc’s new turbines, followed by the U.K. with 13 percent, then Spain and Italy, respectively with 11 percent and 10 percent.

The EU is chasing a target of getting 20 percent of all energy for power, heating and transport from renewables by 2020. At the same time, governments across the bloc are cutting subsidies to reduce budget deficits. Spain last month halted subsidies for renewable energy projects to rein in spending, while in the U.K. lawmakers are campaigning against wind power.

“Despite the economic crisis gripping Europe, the wind industry is still installing solid levels of new capacity,” EWEA Policy Director Justin Wilkes said in an e-mailed statement. “It is critical to send positive signals to investors by European governments maintaining stable policies to support renewables.”

The 27-nation EU now has a total of 93,957 megawatts of installed wind power capacity, about 10.5 percent of the bloc’s total power generation installations, according to EWEA. Because wind is intermittent, in a typical year, that capacity would produce 6.3 percent of the EU’s electricity, the group said.

A third of U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron’s Conservative Party lawmakers signed a letter urging him to cut subsidies for onshore wind farms, lawmaker Chris Heaton-Harris, who organized it, said yesterday in a blog posting.

U.K. Ambition

“It is unwise to make consumers pay, through taxpayer subsidy, for inefficient and intermittent energy production,” the legislators said in the letter, dated Jan. 30. “We ask the government to dramatically cut the subsidy for onshore wind and spread the savings made between other types of reliable renewable energy production and energy efficiency measures.”

The U.K. last year installed 1,293 megawatts of turbines, bringing its total to 6,540 megawatts, according to EWEA. Of last year’s new devices, 752 megawatts were offshore. Britain in July said it wants total wind installations to reach 31,000 megawatts by 2020, with 18,000 megawatts of it offshore.

Across the EU, solar photovoltaic power took 46.7 percent of installations of new electricity capacity last year, followed by gas, at 21.6 percent, and then wind, according to EWEA. Renewables accounted for 71.3 percent of added power generation, the wind group said.