What Will The Next 10 Years Bring for Offshore Wind?

As our 10th anniversary year draws to a close, we asked our team what they thought the next 10 years will bring. Here’s what they said:

Jiang Du – Structural Engineer

Deep water competition. In the next 10 years, we can expect fierce competition among various substructure and foundation types entering the deep-water sites, specifically in the 50-100 meter range. Innovative designs like novel monopiles (such as FRP monopiles), floating platforms (including a multitude of configurations), and conventional jacket substructures will all vie for market share. While it’s too early to determine which type will dominate, as the industry gains deeper insights and improves supply chain coordination, it’s likely that only one type will emerge as the market leader.

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Louise Coles – Partner, Finance and Marketing

The next decade will be transformative from a financial perspective, as technological maturity and economies of scale drive down capital costs and enhance project economics. I suspect more innovative financing models will emerge, spreading risk and creating more predictable investments. The refinement of technologies will improve efficiency and reduce operational expenses, making projects progressively more financially compelling and competitive in the global energy market.

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Al Dennis – Principal Engineer

First things first, I really hope that as a global community we reach peak CO2 emissions in the next 10 years. To help reach that goal the offshore wind industry will need to keep pushing itself in two directions: producing way more GW per year through a highly increased capacity of our supply chain and also going into new territories. New territories include new countries and much deeper sea bed depths. We can make dramatic changes to the energy mix in the next 10 years, this is the century of green electricity!

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Lewis Geddes – Senior Project Engineer

It’s exciting to be involved in the future of offshore wind: Ground breaking projects, seeing how technologies and designs evolve, and making sites economically feasible for development. I’m really looking forward to contributing to the solutions to complex project challenges.

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Benjamin Trouillard – Offshore Engineer

In the next 10 years in offshore wind we’ll go from a dozen potential designs for the floating foundation to a couple of certified and tested designs. It will be very interesting to see which ones win the race.

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Benoît Brière – Partner and Lead Floating Wind Engineer

I think we are only at the beginning of the optimisation of the interface with the turbine itself. What I’m very excited to see is an optimisation of the control strategies, not only to optimise the power produced, but to optimise the whole system.

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Leah Ewart – Principal Engineer

I am looking forward to seeing how big will turbines get. We are already seeing detailed foundations designs based on 20MW+ capacity, which are pushing the limits for foundations in terms of transport and installability. Have we finally reached the ceiling? Or will innovations in transport and handling unlock even bigger increases?”

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Nick Howard – Partner and Principal Engineer

Over the next 10 years, some of the early wind farms will come to end of life. It will be exciting to be involved with these projects, either with decommissioning, or hopefully life extension. Re-visiting the calculations and design methodologies applied 20 plus years ago and comparing them to today’s practices will be interesting.

Amir Jafari – Engineer

I look forward to a future in 10 years where we generate so much electricity from renewable energy that oil and gas become far less necessary. This shift could not only benefit the environment but also reduce the corruption tied to fossil fuels, creating a whole new paradigm for energy and society

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David Short – Engineer

I look forward to the continued build up in UK port and fabrication infrastructure to support the offshore wind industry whilst creating good jobs across the country.

Over the next 10 years I am keen to see more decarbonisation of not only power production but also within the supply chain and shipping operations required for offshore wind farms.

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Read more about Empire Engineering’s offshore wind expertise.