Energy
Offshore Wind
Definition
Offshore wind is the generation of electricity from wind turbines sited in oceans, seas or large lakes. Offshore sites benefit from higher and more consistent wind speeds than land, enabling very large turbines — now exceeding 15 MW — in fixed-bottom installations in shallow water or floating platforms in deeper water.
References
technology description, resource potential and deployment trends
market growth and turbine scale trends
Overview
What it means
Offshore wind has moved from niche to mainstream, with costs falling sharply over the past decade and large-scale deployment in the North Sea, China and increasingly the US and Asia-Pacific. Floating designs open deep-water resources close to coastal demand centres.
How it is used
The term appears in energy policy targets, auction and leasing regimes, and grid planning; governments in Europe and Asia have set dedicated offshore wind capacity targets as a pillar of power-sector decarbonisation.
Why it matters
Offshore wind is one of the few renewable technologies capable of delivering very large volumes of clean power near major coastal cities, making it central to net zero power systems and to emerging green hydrogen plans. **Note:** Serves as the merge target for ID 1936 (Offshore wind farm).