State of key Offshore Wind markets, into Q4

 

So, we're three quarters of the way through 2025, and it's been somewhat of a rollercoaster for the global offshore wind sector. Here are my observations of the state of some key national markets, sorted by the footwear that I ended up acquiring in those nations in 2024 and 2025! Starting on the left, and working right.

USA

Represented by the Anderson Bean cowboy boots that I bought in Houston in late 2024. They're beautifully made, and supremely comfortable. I was spending a few weeks there with colleagues, having just met US project developers at the offshore wind conference of American Clean Power Association (ACP) in Atlantic City.

This was during the climax of the Presidential election. I left the US just after the election result, and throughout the first three quarters of 2025 I've watched as the White House has cancelled wind farms in advanced development, or even construction. See these useful posts on Empire Wind (by Raya Peterson) and on Revolution Wind (by offshoreWIND.biz). Other projects in development, including floating projects off California, have been put on ice. Too many of the professionals that I met at US offshore wind developers during 2024 have since lost their jobs – and the situation contributed to the redundancy of my role this October.

As I write this, the US offshore wind market is now uninvestable, for maybe a decade. A situation that is summed up well by ACP's president Jason Grumet who told me that "it's not easy being green". Just consider that when he told me this at the conference, most polls were predicting a Harris victory!

Australia

This time represented by the R.M. Williams 'Craftsman' boots, bought in Perth in July 2024. I spent time with colleagues there, following meetings with a large number of local offshore wind developers at the Australian Wind Energy (AuWE) conference in Melbourne. Here's an insightful article by one of the speakers at AuWE, Erin Coldham (CIP's CDO in Australia). When I got to Perth the sole of one of my shoes fell off. I'm unsure whether it was the mileage walked at AuWE, or the temperature difference between the cities. Regardless, a fix involving epoxy adhesive failed to resolve, and so a colleague convinced me to Buy Australian!

A large chunk of Feasibility Licences had just been awarded for the Gippsland declared area, off Victoria. Roll forward to this summer (well, Australia's winter) and Ørsted's first project in Gippsland had its licence management plan approved and then it completed the geophys/geotech campaigns for both projects (well done Albert Q and team). Iberdrola also had its management plan approved for its Aurora Green project (see this piece by Simon Engfred of Aegir Insights). Plus, licences were issued for the 'Bunbury' declared area on the west coast, near Perth (useful post by Sjaak Lemmens PhD MTA Dip OWE).

It's fair to say that the other declared areas have hit a few speed bumps, however, with the example of the Novocastrian project pause being a prime example (see this this post from Australia's leading offshore entrepreneur Andy Evans). Then the first offshore auction was postponed by the Victorian government.

My thoughts on the state of the Australian market? It's a relatively new market, as were the UK, Danish and Dutch markets about twenty years ago. Those went through a fair few ups and downs, as the private and public sectors found their feet, and investor confidence grew. Several high profile projects didn't mature to construction, via so-called 'market attrition', due to planning and policy upsets. Today those Western European markets are amongst the strongest in the world. Australia's blessed with a can-do, resourceful spirit, and I've witnessed firsthand a lot of vigour within its offshore market. That's why I believe that they too will develop a robust market. It will probably take another 3-5 years, though, whilst the policy and infrastructure pieces fall into place.

United Kingdom

This time it's the safety boots from DeWalt, bought in Aberdeen before a visit to the Kincardine floating offshore wind farm in summer 2025. The North Sea was relatively placid that day, though the UK offshore wind market has had a relatively choppy year.

That same summer, Ørsted cancelled its planned 2.4GW Hornsea 4 wind farm. John MacAskill wrote this insightful post on Ørsted's decision. It's fair to see the cancellation of this project, which had a recent CfD (offtake-price guarantee) from the UK Government as being influenced by the firm's woes in the USA, though arguably it's a further example of where Ørsted risk-management outlook was too optimistic.

Roll forward a month, into June, and the hotly-anticipated results of UK Round 5 seabed leasing round, involving GW-scale floating wind in the Celtic Sea, were announced. For some the timing of the announcement portended a worrying outcome. All eyes were on seabed-owner The Crown Estate, who had at least one speaker onstage during the Global Offshore Wind 2025 in London. However there was no announcement, there or online, during this major conference.

The next day, TCE announced via a media release that only two of the three 1.5GW Project Development Areas (PDAs), which it had carefully chosen the exact boundaries of after years of work, had received bids. This surprising lack of fanfare, and the relatively low option fees (£350/MW/year) signalled both good and bad news. It was obviously good that the two winning developers (Equinor, and the Gwynt Glas consortium) had priced into their bids the considerable risk that developing a relatively untested technology, in a sea without existing turbines or wind ports, presents. Though the elephant in the room was that no developer saw PDA 2 (south-westernmost, furthest from onshore grid connections) as suitably attractive. It's also curious that Reventus, which is owned by pension giant CPPIP, has entered and exited the Gwynt Glas consortium within the space of 18 months (see this piece from Tom Goulding of PeakLoad), and laid off a fifth of its team. That can't be down to a lack of money, and it's certainly not a lack of talent, so I presume it's to protect its investments in the USA.

There's now a complex interplay between the two 'won' PDAs, the 'empty' PDA 2, and the 100MW projects to be built on the neighbouring 'Test & Demonstration' lease options. Lee Clarke, a co-founder of the former consultancy RCG (acquired by ERM), wrote this thoughtful post regarding this. On the potential involvement of Great British Energy in PDA 2, I am closer to the opinion of Chris Lloyd, in that adding another public sector entity to the broth is, on balance, unwise.

Japan

Last but not least is Japan, where I acquired these snazzy GT2000 trainers at the ASICS flagship in Harajuku, Tokyo. This was just after I'd attended the excellent Wind Expo conference, at which I'd wished that I'd worn these comfy shoes (I must have walked forty miles over the course of its three days). I'd previously travelled extensively across Japan in a personal capacity over several months, plus had written about its offshore wind sector on my blog. A reception at the British Ambassador's residence combined with Wind Expo to allow me great exposure to the major players of the offshore wind and maritime sectors. I was lucky to meet the CEO and Executive Officers of several key players.

My take on the Japanese offshore wind market is that it is blessed with enviable engineering expertise, and a notable obsession with precision and safety. There is also great collaboration between state, academia and industry, and world-leading infrastructure. Though the leasing process is highly demanding, and the time to investor returns is considered unbearably long by many. Despite recent lease awards to bp and JERA – won before the advent of JERA Nex bp – awards from Round 1 have now been unpicked, with Mitsubishi withdrawing from projects awarded previously. The underpinnings of Mitsubishi's decision are complex, so here's a great post by Dai Karasawa, President of Anglo-Japanese project developer SSE Pacifico, that provides some great insight (I don't read Japanese fluently, so like me you'll probably want to use the Show Translation button at its base).

The most recent news from Japan has also been mixed. On the plus-side, new 'designated' and 'preparatory' areas have just been announced by the Japanese government, including at least one designated for commercial-scale floating wind (detail here, courtesy of offshoreWIND.biz). On the downside, whilst Japan's government passed in July legislation to allow offshore wind projects beyond territorial waters (22km), the planned Round 4 auction now won't happen until early 2026 at the earliest (see this, again from Simon Engfred at Aegir Insights).

Beyond the soles

Just as there are only so many pairs of footwear that I own, there are other key emerging offshore wind markets that I've visited recently. They'll have to wait for a future article.

Thanks for reading.