Wind Energy Growth: Analyzing the Global Shift to Offshore Wind Farms

## A Milestone Year for Wind Power Global wind power capacity crossed the 1,000 GW mark in 2025, a milestone that took over four decades to reach. The Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) reports that 2025 saw approximately 115 GW of new installations — the second consecutive year above 100 GW. China alone accounted for roughly 60% of new onshore capacity, with the European Union and United States contributing the bulk of offshore additions. But the raw numbers tell only part of the story. The wind industry is undergoing a structural transformation, pivoting from mature onshore markets toward the vast, untapped energy potential of the ocean. ## Onshore Wind: Mature but Still Growing Onshore wind remains the workhorse of the global wind fleet. With average turbine sizes now exceeding 5 MW on land (up from 2 MW a decade ago), modern onshore projects are dramatically more productive than their predecessors. **Key onshore markets in 2026:** - **China:** Over 450 GW installed. Continues adding 50-60 GW per year, driven by provincial renewable targets. - **United States:** Approximately 155 GW installed. Growth has slowed due to permitting bottlenecks and grid interconnection queues, though the Inflation Reduction Act provides long-term tax credit certainty. - **Brazil:** Fastest-growing onshore market in Latin America, with over 30 GW installed. The northeast trade wind corridor offers exceptional capacity factors above 45%. - **India:** Around 45 GW installed but growing again after years of policy uncertainty. New hybrid wind-solar tenders are driving deployment. The levelized cost of onshore wind has fallen to **$0.03 to $0.05 per kWh** in favorable locations, making it competitive with or cheaper than new natural gas generation virtually everywhere. ## The Offshore Pivot Offshore wind is where the industry's future is being built. Cumulative offshore capacity reached roughly **85 GW globally** by end of 2025, with a pipeline of over 500 GW in various stages of planning and permitting. Why offshore? The reasons are straightforward: - **Stronger, more consistent winds.** Average offshore wind speeds are 20-40% higher than onshore, and turbulence is lower. This translates to capacity factors of 45-55%, compared to 25-40% onshore. - **Larger turbines.** Without road transport constraints, offshore turbines have grown to enormous sizes. Vestas and Siemens Gamesa now produce 15-16 MW machines, and 20 MW designs are in development. A single modern offshore turbine can power 20,000 homes. - **Proximity to demand.** Most of the world's population and electricity demand is concentrated near coastlines. Offshore wind can deliver power without the long transmission lines that onshore projects often require. - **Less visual and community opposition.** Turbines sited 15-30 km from shore are invisible to coastal communities, sidestepping one of onshore wind's biggest obstacles. ## Fixed-Bottom vs. Floating: Two Approaches Traditional offshore wind farms use **fixed-bottom foundations** — steel monopiles or jacket structures driven into the seabed. This technology is mature and proven, with major operational farms like Hornsea 2 (1.3 GW, UK) and Borssele (1.5 GW, Netherlands) demonstrating reliable performance. Fixed-bottom works well in water depths up to about 60 meters. But the vast majority of the world's offshore wind resource lies in deeper waters where fixed foundations are impractical. Enter **floating wind technology**. Floating platforms — typically spar-buoy, semi-submersible, or tension-leg designs — anchor turbines to the seabed with mooring lines, allowing deployment in water depths of 60 to 1,000+ meters. This opens up enormous new resource areas off the coasts of Japan, South Korea, California, the Mediterranean, and deep-water Atlantic sites. > Equinor's Hywind Tampen project in Norway (88 MW) is the world's largest floating wind farm as of 2025. France's three pilot floating farms (each 24-30 MW) came online in 2024-2025, and South Korea's 1.2 GW Ulsan floating project is under construction for a 2028 completion. Floating wind costs remain higher than fixed-bottom — roughly **$0.08 to $0.12 per kWh** for current projects — but are expected to fall to $0.05 to $0.07 per kWh by 2030 as manufacturing scales and installation techniques improve. ## Key Markets Driving the Offshore Boom **European Union:** The EU has committed to 120 GW of offshore wind by 2030 under its REPowerEU plan. The UK (post-Brexit, but still a major player) targets 50 GW by 2030. The North Sea is the epicenter of this build-out, with the Esbjerg Declaration committing Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium to treating it as a shared "green power plant." **China:** Already the world leader in offshore wind with over 35 GW installed, China added more offshore capacity in 2024-2025 than any other country. Chinese turbine manufacturers CSSC Haizhuang and Mingyang have rapidly closed the technology gap with European incumbents. **United States:** After years of false starts, US offshore wind is finally moving. Vineyard Wind (800 MW) off Massachusetts began operations in 2024, and projects totaling over 30 GW are in federal and state permitting pipelines along the East Coast. California's BOEM lease areas will require floating technology, with first projects expected in the late 2020s. **Japan and South Korea:** Both nations have aggressive floating wind targets to compensate for limited shallow-water areas. Japan's GI Fund allocated $1.7 billion for floating wind commercialization. ## Supply Chain Challenges The industry's ambitions face real bottlenecks: - **Installation vessels:** Purpose-built jack-up vessels and cable-laying ships are in critically short supply. A single wind turbine installation vessel (WTIV) costs $300-500 million and takes 3-4 years to build. Orders are booked through the end of the decade. - **Port infrastructure:** Assembly ports need deep water, heavy-load quaysides, and vast laydown areas. Many coastal nations lack adequate port facilities for next-generation turbines. - **Raw materials:** Permanent magnets in direct-drive turbines require rare earth elements, predominantly sourced from China. Diversifying this supply chain is a strategic priority for the EU and US. - **Skilled labor:** The offshore workforce — marine engineers, turbine technicians, cable specialists — cannot scale as fast as project pipelines demand. ## 2030 Projections GWEC projects global wind capacity will reach approximately **1,700 GW by 2030**, with offshore contributing 300-350 GW of that total. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) is slightly more conservative on offshore at 270 GW, citing supply chain constraints. The financial commitment is staggering. Offshore wind investment exceeded **$75 billion globally in 2025** and is projected to surpass $100 billion annually by 2028. Pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and infrastructure investors have poured capital into the sector, attracted by long-term contracted revenue and government support mechanisms. ## What It Means Wind energy — and offshore wind in particular — has become one of the defining infrastructure investments of the 21st century. The technology works. The economics are strong and improving. The political will exists across most major economies. The question is no longer whether offshore wind will scale, but whether supply chains, grid infrastructure, and permitting systems can keep pace with demand. For energy analysts and investors, the offshore wind buildout represents perhaps the largest single industrial deployment since the post-war highway systems — and it is just getting started.