Offshore Wind Statistics 2026
By Axis Intelligence Research
Co-author: Aidan Jad | Last updated: September 6, 2026 | License: CC BY 4.0
Global offshore wind capacity reached 91,380 MW at the end of 2025, according to IRENA’s Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026. China alone holds 47,390 MW of that total. Axis Intelligence Research finds China ended 2025 holding 51.86% of world offshore capacity — the highest single-country share on record, restoring a majority it had briefly lost in 2024.
Quick Answer
There were 91,380 MW (91.4 GW) of offshore wind capacity installed worldwide at the end of 2025, up 8,635 MW (+10.44%) on 2024. Axis Intelligence Research finds China supplied 70.87% of those additions and now holds 51.86% of the world fleet. The European Union added just 866 MW — 6.72% of the annual rate its own 2030 goal requires.
Key Findings
- According to IRENA’s Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026, global offshore wind capacity stood at 91,380 MW at 31 December 2025, up from 82,745 MW a year earlier.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds China held 51.86% of world offshore wind capacity at end-2025, its highest share on record, after first crossing 50% in 2023 (50.13%) and slipping to 49.88% in 2024.
- Axis Intelligence Research finds the United Kingdom’s wind fleet became majority-offshore in 2025, at 50.80% offshore by capacity, up from 49.51% in 2024.
- The Axis Offshore Wind Delivery Gap (OWDG) reads 14.89 for the European Union against its lower 2030 goal — the bloc must build almost fifteen times its 2025 pace every year to 2030.
- The UK’s seventh Contracts for Difference round cleared 8,437.50 MW of offshore wind on 14 January 2026, with floating wind clearing at £216.49/MWh against £91.20/MWh for fixed-bottom — a 2.374× premium.
How much offshore wind capacity is installed worldwide?
Offshore wind is a small slice of a very large industry. At end-2025 it accounted for 7.08% of the world’s 1,291,368 MW of wind capacity and 1.78% of all installed renewable power capacity — a share that has barely moved in three years even as the absolute number has climbed.
The stock series below comes directly from the offshore wind table in IRENA’s Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026, the primary reference for grid-connected renewable capacity by technology.
Global offshore wind capacity, 2016–2025
| Year-end | Installed capacity (MW) | Net additions (MW) | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 14,377 | — | IRENA |
| 2017 | 18,805 | 4,428 | IRENA |
| 2018 | 23,560 | 4,755 | IRENA |
| 2019 | 28,263 | 4,703 | IRENA |
| 2020 | 34,340 | 6,077 | IRENA |
| 2021 | 54,268 | 19,928 | IRENA |
| 2022 | 62,622 | 8,354 | IRENA |
| 2023 | 74,387 | 11,765 | IRENA |
| 2024 | 82,745 | 8,358 | IRENA |
| 2025 | 91,380 | 8,635 | IRENA |
Source: IRENA, Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026. Additions are Axis Intelligence Research calculations on the IRENA stock series.
How fast is offshore wind actually growing?
The compound annual growth rate across 2016–2025 is 22.81%, which sounds like an industry in acceleration. It is not. Strip out 2021 — when 19,928 MW landed in a single year as Chinese developers rushed to connect before the national feed-in tariff expired — and the picture is a market that has added between 8,354 MW and 11,765 MW a year ever since. The 2025 figure of 8,635 MW is 3.3% above 2024 and still below 2023.
There is a definitional wrinkle worth naming. The IEA’s Renewables 2025 puts the 2024 annual offshore market at 9.2 GW; the IRENA stock difference for the same year is 8,358 MW. Axis Intelligence Research does not average the two. IRENA reports capacity installed and connected at year-end; the IEA figure reflects commissioning within the calendar year. Both are defensible; blending them would produce a number that means nothing. Everywhere in this dataset the IRENA convention is used, and the IEA figures are quoted as forecasts rather than merged into the history.
Aidan Jad’s take: “Twenty-three percent CAGR is the kind of number that ends up in a pitch deck. The honest read is a plateau with one enormous spike in it. Offshore wind has been running at roughly 8–12 GW a year since 2022 while global solar added 510 GW in 2025 alone. The constraint isn’t demand — it’s vessels, monopile foundries, cable factories and grid connection dates, and none of those scale on a press release.”
Which countries have the most offshore wind capacity?
Offshore wind capacity by country, 2025
| Rank | Country / market | Capacity end-2025 (MW) | Share of world | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | China | 47,390 | 51.86% | IRENA |
| 2 | United Kingdom | 16,965 | 18.57% | IRENA |
| 3 | Germany | 9,673 | 10.59% | IRENA |
| 4 | Netherlands | 4,748 | 5.20% | IRENA |
| 5 | Chinese Taipei | 3,587 | 3.93% | IRENA |
| 6 | Denmark | 2,644 | 2.89% | IRENA |
| 7 | Belgium | 2,262 | 2.48% | IRENA |
| 8 | France | 1,902 | 2.08% | IRENA |
| 9 | Viet Nam | 1,104 | 1.21% | IRENA |
| 10 | Japan | 285 | 0.31% | IRENA |
| 11 | Korea, Rep. | 246 | 0.27% | IRENA |
| 12 | Sweden | 193 | 0.21% | IRENA |
| 13 | United States | 171 | 0.19% | IRENA |
| 14 | Norway | 95 | 0.10% | IRENA |
| 15 | Finland | 32 | 0.04% | IRENA |
| 16 | Italy | 31 | 0.03% | IRENA |
| 17 | Ireland | 25 | 0.03% | IRENA |
| 18 | Portugal | 25 | 0.03% | IRENA |
| 19 | Spain | 5 | 0.01% | IRENA |
Source: IRENA, Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026. Shares are Axis Intelligence Research calculations. Nineteen markets report non-zero offshore capacity; the national values sum to 91,383 MW against IRENA’s world total of 91,380 MW, a 3 MW variance from IRENA’s rounding to whole megawatts.
Regionally, Asia held 52,611 MW, Europe 38,598 MW and North America 171 MW. Asia added 6,720 MW in 2025 against Europe’s 1,915 MW.
The Offshore Wind Concentration Index (OWCI)
OWCI — Offshore Wind Concentration Index. A Herfindahl-Hirschman measure of how concentrated global offshore wind capacity is across national markets, published by Axis Intelligence Research and licensed CC BY 4.0.
Formula: OWCI = Σ (sᵢ)², where sᵢ is each reporting market’s percentage share of global installed offshore wind capacity. The index runs from near 0 (perfectly dispersed) to 10,000 (one country holds everything). Inputs are the 19 national values in the table above, all drawn from IRENA. Two readings are published: OWCI-stock, computed on installed capacity, and OWCI-flow, computed on net additions within the year.
Readings, as of 31 December 2025:
| Reading | 2024 | 2025 | Change | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| OWCI-stock | 3,050.4 | 3,209.0 | +158.6 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| OWCI-flow | — | 5,269.5 | — | Axis Intelligence Research |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research calculation on IRENA Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026 data.
For reference, competition authorities generally treat a market above 2,500 as highly concentrated. Offshore wind capacity sits at 3,209.0 and is getting more concentrated, not less. The flow reading of 5,269.5 is the number that matters for the next five years: only five markets — China, the UK, Chinese Taipei, Germany and France — added any offshore capacity at all in 2025.
What OWCI does not capture: it measures where turbines are connected, not where they are manufactured, financed or owned. A Danish developer building in Chinese Taipei registers as Chinese Taipei capacity. The index also treats each reporting market as a unit and takes no view on sea basin, water depth or foundation type.
Why did China’s share of global offshore wind hit a record in 2025?
China added 6,120 MW offshore in 2025 — 70.87% of everything installed worldwide that year — lifting its share of the global fleet from 49.88% to 51.86%, the highest reading in the series.
The 50% line is not new, and the detail matters for anyone citing this number. China first crossed it in 2023 at 50.13%, then fell back to 49.88% in 2024 as UK, German and Chinese Taipei projects connected. 2025 restored the majority and extended it. The share has moved from 10.29% in 2016 to 51.86% in 2025, with the step change in 2021, when the pre-tariff-expiry rush took China from 26.18% to 48.63% in a single year. No other country added more than 1,049 MW in 2025.
The composition is what makes this durable rather than a one-year spike. China’s own fleet is only 7.40% offshore; the remaining 593,236 MW is onshore. Offshore is a rounding error inside China’s wind programme and still more than half the world’s total. That asymmetry is the structural fact of this market: the country with the most room to grow offshore is also the one that has already won it.
Aidan Jad’s take: “The interesting number here isn’t 51.86%, it’s 7.40%. China holds a majority of global offshore capacity while spending almost none of its attention on it. Europe, by contrast, has bet its 2030 power system on a technology where it is being outbuilt seven to one on annual additions. When people ask whether offshore wind is ‘working’, they’re usually asking about two completely different industries that happen to share a name.”
How far behind are the 2030 offshore wind targets?
This is where the reported numbers and the policy numbers stop agreeing, and it is the reason Axis Intelligence Research built a dedicated metric for it.
The Offshore Wind Delivery Gap (OWDG)
OWDG — Offshore Wind Delivery Gap. The ratio between the annual build rate a market needs to hit its stated 2030 offshore wind goal and the rate it actually achieved in the most recent completed year. Published by Axis Intelligence Research and licensed CC BY 4.0.
Formula:
R = (Target₂₀₃₀ − Installed₂₀₂₅) ÷ 5
OWDG = R ÷ A₂₀₂₅
Where R is the required annual addition in MW across the five build years 2026–2030, Installed₂₀₂₅ is IRENA’s year-end 2025 capacity, and A₂₀₂₅ is that market’s net additions during 2025.
Interpretation: OWDG = 1.0 means the market is building at exactly the pace its own target requires. OWDG = 3.0 means it must triple. The metric is deliberately blunt — it assumes a flat build profile and takes each government’s stated goal at face value rather than substituting a private forecast.
OWDG readings, base year 2025
| Market | 2030 goal | Installed end-2025 | Required MW/yr | 2025 additions | OWDG | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| European Union | 86,000 MW (lower) | 21,539 MW | 12,892.2 | 866 MW | 14.89 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| European Union | 89,000 MW (upper) | 21,539 MW | 13,492.2 | 866 MW | 15.58 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| United Kingdom | 43,000 MW (lower) | 16,965 MW | 5,207.0 | 1,049 MW | 4.96 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| United Kingdom | 50,000 MW (upper) | 16,965 MW | 6,607.0 | 1,049 MW | 6.30 | Axis Intelligence Research |
| United States | 30,000 MW | 171 MW | 5,965.8 | 0 MW | not computed | Axis Intelligence Research |
Sources: capacity from IRENA Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026; EU goal from the European Commission; UK target from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero; US target as recorded by the IEA. Ratios calculated by Axis Intelligence Research.
The United States reading is deliberately withheld. Net US offshore additions in 2025 were zero, which makes the denominator zero and the ratio undefined. Axis Intelligence Research does not publish an infinity, and does not quietly substitute a small positive number to make the table look complete. What can be said precisely: reaching 30,000 MW by 2030 from 171 MW would require 5,965.8 MW a year, roughly two-thirds of the entire world’s 2025 offshore build, repeated for five consecutive years.
The EU delivered 6.72% of the annual rate its own lower goal requires. The UK is the only major Western market with an OWDG below 10, and even there the gap is a factor of five.
The 111 GW figure that most analyses still use is out of date
Almost every offshore wind analysis published since 2023 cites an EU 2030 ambition of 111 GW. That figure comes from the sea-basin agreements EU member states concluded in January 2023. It has been superseded.
The European Commission’s offshore renewable energy page now states the regional cumulative goals as 86–89 GW by 2030 and 355–366 GW by 2050, following the second round of non-binding regional agreements concluded in December 2024 under the TEN-E Regulation. The IEA’s own Renewables 2025 report still references the 111 GW figure when describing EU offshore ambition.
Axis Intelligence Research uses 86–89 GW throughout this dataset. The choice matters: computed against 111 GW, the EU’s OWDG would read 20.66 rather than 14.89 — a difference large enough to change the conclusion a journalist draws.
What does offshore wind cost? UK AR7 clearing prices
The UK runs the most transparent offshore wind procurement in the world, which makes its Contracts for Difference rounds the best available price signal for the whole sector. On 14 January 2026 the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero published the results of Allocation Round 7, awarding 8,437.50 MW — 8,245.00 MW fixed-bottom and 192.50 MW floating.
AR7 clearing prices, all in 2024 money
| Technology | Capacity (MW) | Administrative strike price (£/MWh) | Clearing price (£/MWh) | Saving | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Offshore wind (England & Wales) | 6,865.00 | 113 | 91.20 | 19.29% | DESNZ |
| Offshore wind (Scotland) | 1,380.00 | 113 | 89.49 | 20.81% | DESNZ |
| Floating offshore wind | 192.50 | 271 | 216.49 | 20.11% | DESNZ |
Source: Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, Contracts for Difference Allocation Round 7 results, 14 January 2026. Awards split England 6,090.00 MW, Scotland 1,472.50 MW, Wales 875.00 MW.
Floating wind is not “nearly cost-competitive”
Axis Intelligence Research finds floating offshore wind cleared AR7 at 2.374× the fixed-bottom price. Both technologies cleared roughly 20% below their administrative caps, which tells you the auction was competitive within each pot — but the gap between pots did not narrow, because the pots do not compete with each other. Floating wind won 192.50 MW out of 8,437.50 MW, or 2.28% of the round.
There is a second number in AR7 worth holding onto. At the UK’s 2025 build rate of 1,049 MW a year, the 8,437.50 MW awarded in a single afternoon represents 8.04 years of construction. Contracting capacity and connecting capacity are different problems, and the UK has now demonstrated it is much better at the first than the second.
Aidan Jad’s take: “Everyone reported AR7 as a record, and by contracted volume it was. But a strike price is an option on a turbine, not a turbine. The UK has 8.4 GW under contract and a delivery record of about a gigawatt a year. Either the build rate goes up by a factor of five between now and 2030, or a chunk of that contracted capacity slips past its delivery year — and the CfD register will tell us which, publicly, in 2028.”
What happened to United States offshore wind?
US offshore capacity has been 171 MW since 2024 and did not move in 2025. That is 0.19% of world capacity and 0.11% of the United States’ own 158,826 MW wind fleet.
The pipeline has not disappeared, but the federal posture has changed sharply. BOEM’s Lease and Grant register records that on 30 July 2025 the bureau rescinded all designated Wind Energy Areas on the Outer Continental Shelf, de-designating over 3.5 million acres of unleased federal waters across the Gulf of America, the Gulf of Maine, the New York Bight, California, Oregon and the Central Atlantic.
BOEM commercial offshore wind lease register, snapshot
Axis Intelligence Research counted every row on BOEM’s public lease register carrying authorisation type “Commercial Lease” and resource type “Wind”, as the register stood on its 13 August 2026 update.
| Lease status | Count | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Active | 35 | BOEM |
| Cancelled | 5 | BOEM |
| Consolidated | 2 | BOEM |
| Relinquished | 1 | BOEM |
| Total commercial wind leases | 43 | BOEM |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research count of the BOEM Lease and Grant Information register, snapshot 13 August 2026, retrieved 5 September 2026. Cancellations cover two Gulf of Maine leases, one New York Bight lease, one Carolina Long Bay lease and one California floating lease.
Five cancelled commercial leases is not a collapse of the register — 35 remain active — but it is the first time cancellations have appeared in the US offshore lease book in numbers.
Construction, meanwhile, continued. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported in February 2026 that developers planned 86,000 MW of utility-scale additions in 2026 including 11,800 MW of wind, with the 800 MW Vineyard Wind 1 and the 715 MW Revolution Wind expected online during the year after delays. If both connect, US offshore capacity moves from a rounding error to roughly 1.7 GW — still under 2% of the world total.
Which countries actually depend on offshore wind?
Installed megawatts tell you who is biggest. Offshore Fleet Intensity (OFI) — offshore capacity as a share of a country’s total wind fleet, an Axis Intelligence Research calculation on the IRENA onshore and offshore tables — tells you who has bet on it.
| Country | Offshore (MW) | Total wind (MW) | OFI | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 16,965 | 33,396 | 50.80% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Netherlands | 4,748 | 11,783 | 40.30% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Belgium | 2,262 | 5,851 | 38.66% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Denmark | 2,644 | 7,547 | 35.03% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| Germany | 9,673 | 77,808 | 12.43% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| France | 1,902 | 25,655 | 7.41% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| China | 47,390 | 640,626 | 7.40% | Axis Intelligence Research |
| United States | 171 | 158,826 | 0.11% | Axis Intelligence Research |
Source: Axis Intelligence Research calculation on IRENA Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026 onshore and offshore wind tables, year-end 2025.
Axis Intelligence Research finds the United Kingdom crossed into a majority-offshore wind fleet during 2025, at 50.80% against 49.51% at end-2024. It is the first large wind market where more capacity sits in the sea than on land, and it is a direct consequence of onshore planning restrictions in England that held UK onshore additions to 201 MW in 2025 while offshore added 1,049 MW.
That inversion is why UK offshore auction outcomes move the country’s whole power system, and why the AR7 delivery question above is not a sector story but a national one. Readers tracking the wider picture will find the onshore comparison in our wind energy statistics pillar and the connection-queue constraint in our grid interconnection queue statistics.
What the forecasters expect through 2030
The IEA’s Renewables 2025 projects 140 GW of offshore wind additions across 2025–2030, with the annual market rising from 9.2 GW in 2024 to over 37 GW by 2030 and China accounting for almost half of that increase. Europe’s annual market is expected to approach 14.6 GW by 2030.
That forecast is itself a 27% downward revision from the previous year’s edition — the largest relative cut of any technology in the IEA’s outlook, against an overall renewables forecast of 4,600 GW that was trimmed only 5%. The EU-specific offshore revision was −24%. Awarded offshore wind volumes in global competitive auctions in the first half of 2025 came to just 2.5 GW.
Set that against the OWDG readings above and the arithmetic is uncomfortable. Reaching 37 GW a year by 2030 requires the world market to more than quadruple from 8,635 MW in four years, in a sector whose annual output has moved sideways since 2022.
Methodology
Collection. Every figure in this dataset was retrieved from a primary document on 5 September 2026. Capacity data comes from IRENA’s Renewable Capacity Statistics 2026, the offshore wind, onshore wind and total wind tables (pages 14–20), which report capacity installed and connected at each year-end. Auction data comes from the DESNZ AR7 results PDF published 14 January 2026. US data comes from EIA Today in Energy (20 February 2026) and BOEM’s Lease and Grant register. Policy goals come from the European Commission’s offshore renewable energy page and the DESNZ Clean Power 2030 Action Plan. Forecasts come from IEA Renewables 2025. No secondary aggregator, market-research vendor or trade publication was used as a source for any number on this page.
Formulas. All three Axis metrics are reproducible from the published CSV:
- OWCI = Σ(sᵢ)², where sᵢ is a market’s percentage share of global installed offshore capacity (OWCI-stock) or of net additions in the year (OWCI-flow). All 19 IRENA-reporting markets are included; no minimum threshold is applied.
- OWDG = [(Target₂₀₃₀ − Installed₂₀₂₅) ÷ 5] ÷ A₂₀₂₅, using each government’s own published 2030 goal. Where a goal is expressed as a range, both endpoints are reported. Where 2025 additions were zero, no ratio is published.
- OFI = offshore MW ÷ (onshore MW + offshore MW) for the same country and year.
Verification. All arithmetic was computed twice — once in floating point, once with exact rational arithmetic — and every prose figure was matched against a CSV row before publication. The 19 national offshore values sum to 91,383 MW against IRENA’s world total of 91,380 MW; the 3 MW variance arises from IRENA rounding each national value to whole megawatts and is disclosed rather than silently reconciled.
Scope. This dataset covers grid-connected offshore wind capacity and does not include projects under construction, contracted but unbuilt capacity, or seabed leases. It reports capacity, not generation, and takes no position on capacity factors, which vary widely by sea basin and turbine vintage. IRENA notes that 2025 figures may be revised in its July 2026 update. Government 2030 goals are treated as stated policy, not as forecasts.
About this dataset
Contents. 195 rows covering global and national offshore wind capacity 2016–2025, 2025 net additions, national fleet intensity, UK CfD Allocation Round 7 clearing prices and volumes, US federal lease-register status counts, published 2030 policy goals, IEA forecast figures, and the three Axis Intelligence Research metrics (OWCI, OWDG, OFI).
Provenance columns. Every row carries source_org, source_document, source_url, retrieved_date, is_primary, axis_calculated and, for calculated rows, a method_note naming the exact operation.
Licence. CC BY 4.0. The dataset and the OWCI, OWDG and OFI methodologies may be reused, redistributed and built upon with attribution.
Cite as: Axis Intelligence Research, Offshore Wind Statistics 2026, axis-intelligence.com/offshore-wind-statistics/
Citation formats
APA — Axis Intelligence Research. (2026). Offshore wind statistics 2026: Capacity by country, auction prices, and the 2030 delivery gap. https://axis-intelligence.com/offshore-wind-statistics/
MLA — Axis Intelligence Research. “Offshore Wind Statistics 2026: Capacity by Country, Auction Prices, and the 2030 Delivery Gap.” Axis Intelligence, 5 Sept. 2026, axis-intelligence.com/offshore-wind-statistics/.
Chicago — Axis Intelligence Research. “Offshore Wind Statistics 2026: Capacity by Country, Auction Prices, and the 2030 Delivery Gap.” Axis Intelligence, September 6, 2026. https://axis-intelligence.com/offshore-wind-statistics/.
Frequently asked questions
Does IRENA count a turbine when it is installed or when it is connected to the grid?
Connected. IRENA reports the maximum net generating capacity installed and connected at the end of the calendar year. This is why a project whose turbines are all standing in December but whose export cable energises in February appears in the following year’s data — and why IRENA’s 2024 figure of 8,358 MW sits below the IEA’s 9.2 GW commissioning figure for the same year.
Why do offshore wind figures for the same year differ between IRENA, the IEA and national regulators?
Three reasons, in order of size: the connection-versus-commissioning boundary above; whether partially energised projects are counted at full nameplate or at connected capacity; and revision lag, since IRENA revises prior years in each release and revised its 2024 global renewable total upward by 14 GW in the 2026 edition. Axis Intelligence Research uses one convention throughout rather than mixing them.
Is the EU’s 2030 offshore wind goal 111 GW or 86–89 GW?
86–89 GW. The 111 GW figure comes from the January 2023 sea-basin agreements and was superseded when EU member states concluded their second round of non-binding regional agreements in December 2024 under the TEN-E Regulation. Many published analyses, including the IEA’s Renewables 2025, still quote the older number.
Why is floating offshore wind still more than twice the price of fixed-bottom?
The UK’s AR7 round is the cleanest available answer: floating cleared at £216.49/MWh against £91.20/MWh fixed-bottom, a 2.374× ratio. Floating and fixed-bottom bid into separate pots with separate administrative caps, so the two never compete on price. Both cleared roughly 20% below their own caps, meaning competition existed within each technology but did nothing to close the gap between them.
What does an OWDG of 14.89 actually mean for the European Union?
That the EU would have to install 12,892 MW of offshore wind every year from 2026 through 2030 to reach the lower end of its own goal, having installed 866 MW in 2025. It delivered 6.72% of the required rate. The metric assumes a flat build profile; a back-loaded profile would shift the burden into 2029–2030 without changing the total.
How much offshore wind does the United States have, and is it growing?
171 MW at end-2025, unchanged from 2024, across two operating projects. The EIA expects the 800 MW Vineyard Wind 1 and the 715 MW Revolution Wind to connect during 2026 after delays, which would take the total to roughly 1.7 GW.
Has any US offshore wind lease actually been cancelled?
Yes. Five commercial wind leases on BOEM’s register carried Cancelled status at the 13 August 2026 snapshot, out of 43 commercial wind leases in total; 35 remain Active. Separately, BOEM de-designated over 3.5 million acres of unleased Wind Energy Areas in July 2025, which removes future leasing areas rather than existing leases.
Which country is most exposed to offshore wind performance?
The United Kingdom. Its wind fleet became majority-offshore in 2025 at 50.80%, ahead of the Netherlands (40.30%) and Belgium (38.66%). Germany, despite ranking third worldwide in absolute offshore capacity, is only 12.43% offshore, and China — holder of a majority of the global fleet — is 7.40%.
Does the OWCI include capacity that is contracted but not yet built?
No. OWCI is computed only on capacity installed and connected, as reported by IRENA. Contracted capacity such as the UK’s 8,437.50 MW from AR7 sits outside the index until it connects, which is the point: the index measures where offshore wind exists, not where it has been promised.