Across emerging markets, governments are putting the building blocks in place for offshore wind: strategies, targets, policies, regulatory frameworks and delivery arrangements. Yet markets are moving slower than planned and developer appetite is patchy.
Governments often announce offshore wind ambitions and targets before building the organisations needed to deliver them. This is understandable. Setting ambition is often the first step. Real progress depends on developing the capacity to implement, coordinate and continuously improve the frameworks that turn ambition into projects.
Each building block must be implemented fully, repeated and adapted as the market develops. They must also work together.
Offshore wind frameworks are unusually interdependent. Decisions on seabed access, permitting, grid, revenue support, ports, supply chain, and environmental and social safeguards shape the investment case. If one part is unclear, incomplete or unaligned, developers cannot confidently progress from site to investable project. Uncertainty grows, decisions pause and capital moves elsewhere.
This is not usually due to a lack of government ambition or activity. The challenge is the scale and complexity of the task. The BVGA report for World Bank Group Making Offshore Wind Work, sets out the breadth of activity required, and the importance of well-resourced teams to lead it.
Governments need enough people with the right experience, credibility and time to listen to industry, coordinate across institutions, test arrangements in practice and resolve issues quickly. Without that capacity, promising frameworks can remain incomplete or become misaligned. With it, governments can create a clearer, more viable route to investment.
Our new report, Government and Regulatory Authority Resourcing for Offshore Wind, examines resourcing in established markets and how it can be funded.
The issue is not whether governments are acting. It is whether they have the resources to complete, connect and deliver what they have started.
Upcoming blogs will cover how many people does a government need to support a GW-scale offshore wind industry and how can these roles be funded sustainably?
