Where the market is now

Installed capacity in 2025 was concentrated in five countries. China led for the eighth consecutive year with 6.6 gigawatts commissioned, bringing its cumulative total to 47.4 gigawatts. That figure was lower than GWEC's own earlier projection, held back by the transition from the old grid-parity support scheme to a new market-oriented pricing mechanism introduced by the NDRC and NEA in February 2025.

Europe added approximately 2 gigawatts across five projects in three markets, accounting for one fifth of the capacity connected globally. The rest of the world, ex-China and ex-Europe, added around 0.7 gigawatts, the United States contributing none beyond the completion of Vineyard Wind 1 in Massachusetts.

New additions by market, 2025

• China, 6.6 GW. Grid-connected via the new market pricing mechanism, 52 percent of global cumulative.
• United Kingdom, 1.05 GW. Europe's largest adder, including Neart na Gaoithe and phase 1 of Dogger Bank A.
• Taiwan, 0.60 GW. Hailong 2 and 3 plus Greater Changhua 2b and 4, using SG 14.0 turbines.
• Germany, 0.50 GW. Borkum Riffgrund 3 with SG 11.0-200 and He Dreiht with V236-15.0 MW machines.
• France, 0.41 GW. Iles d'Yeu and Noirmoutier, 61 SG 8.0-167 turbines, full COD expected 2026.
• South Korea, 0.10 GW. Jeonnam 1 offshore wind and the Yeonggwang Yaksu project.
• United States, 0 GW of new additions. Vineyard Wind 1 completed in March 2026, no further builds.
• Floating, 0 GW. First year with zero floating commissioning since 2015.

Where it is heading, 2026 to 2030

GWEC projects 129 gigawatts of new offshore capacity to be connected between 2026 and 2030, roughly 26 gigawatts per year on average. Offshore's share of total wind installations rises from 6 percent today to an expected 16 percent by 2030. The regional split is concentrated: China 56 percent, the European Union 29 percent, the rest of Asia Pacific 10 percent, and the United States just 5 percent, with that last figure essentially locked in by projects already under construction rather than anything new being approved.

Inside Europe, the pipeline tilts sharply toward the UK, which is forecast to add 16 gigawatts and take 44 percent of the regional total. The driver is the delivery of projects awarded through Contract for Difference Allocation Rounds 3, 4 and 6, and the record 8.4 gigawatts secured through AR7 in early 2026, roughly a third of which is expected to commission before the end of the decade. Germany, Poland and the Netherlands between them account for another 17 gigawatts.

The fault lines

The forecast assumes current policy trajectories hold. Three structural tensions could move the numbers materially up or down.

The United States is effectively paused

Following the January 2025 Presidential Executive Order, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cancelled all wind energy areas it had designated since 2014. Construction was halted at five in-flight projects on security grounds. No new capacity was awarded in 2025. New Jersey's fourth solicitation and New York's fifth were both pulled. GWEC's assessment is that offshore wind has no real future in the US before 2029 at the earliest, and given the lead time on offshore projects, nothing significant commissions between 2029 and 2030 regardless of election outcomes. The 5 percent US share of forecast additions is drawn almost entirely from projects already in construction.

European auctions are misfiring

6.1 gigawatts of offshore auction rounds failed or undercleared across Germany, France, the Netherlands and Belgium in 2025, the highest share in a decade. The cause was the mismatch between reserve prices set against 2019 to 2022 cost assumptions and the cost environment developers actually face now, including higher capital costs, cable and vessel inflation, and supply chain bottlenecks. The response from policymakers is mid-transition. Germany has moved partially away from negative bidding, Europe more broadly is introducing two-sided CfDs. Whether these reforms land fast enough to protect the 2027 to 2029 delivery window is an open question.

Floating wind is recalibrating

1.9 gigawatts of floating capacity won auctions worldwide in 2024. In 2025 that number was zero. No floating project commissioned anywhere in the world, the first such year since 2015. The technology is not in retreat, demonstration projects in France, Japan and Portugal are working through commissioning for delivery in 2026, and China launched its first commercial floating prototype. But the commercial acceleration widely forecast for the late 2020s is now visibly pushed into the 2030s. Markets dependent on floating for their offshore future, including the US west coast, much of Japan, South Korea and the Celtic Sea, face a harder decade than they were planning for.

The technology frontier

Turbine scaling remains the main lever on unit economics. The latest generation of offshore turbines commissioning in 2025 is in the 14 to 15 megawatt class, Siemens Gamesa's SG 14.0-236 and Vestas' V236-15.0 MW being the reference machines. Announcements of 18 to 20 megawatt platforms are already in industrial pipeline for deployment in the late 2020s. Each doubling in turbine rating has historically delivered about 20 to 25 percent cost reduction per megawatt-hour, and the first 15 megawatt projects are validating that trajectory at commercial scale.

The fixed-to-floating transition is the other frontier. China's offshore supply chain, which commissions more capacity than the rest of the world combined, is still overwhelmingly bottom-fixed, but the country's maritime strategy explicitly includes deep-water as a priority. European floating demonstrators will largely determine whether the technology reaches commercial parity before 2035, a question with direct bearing on the UK Celtic Sea pipeline and any credible Japanese or Korean offshore ambition.

On cost, China has already delivered the lowest levelised cost of energy of any offshore market globally, a function of dense supply chain co-location, state-backed financing and the scale of the domestic pipeline. European LCOE fell sharply through the 2010s, stalled in the 2022 to 2024 window, and is now showing a modest recovery driven by AR6 and AR7 pricing in the UK. Convergence between Chinese and European offshore costs is not expected this decade.

What to watch, 2026 to 2028

Four signposts that will tell you whether the 129 gigawatt forecast is holding, softening, or accelerating.

1. Can China's new market-oriented pricing hold developer confidence. The transition from grid parity to market-oriented pricing was implemented in February 2025 and is still in its first full project cycle. If it does not, annual Chinese additions slip below 15 gigawatts and the regional forecast weakens materially.
2. Can UK AR7's 8.4 GW reach financial close on time. The record AR7 award in early 2026 is the pipeline backbone for UK delivery in the late 2020s. Slippage on FID for the larger projects in that round pushes commissioning past 2030.
3. Do floating demonstrators commission on budget. France's four projects and China's commercial-scale prototype are the near-term test cases. Budget and schedule performance on these determines whether Celtic Sea, Japanese and Korean floating programmes can attract commercial investment before 2028.
4. Do Poland and the Netherlands deliver their first wave. Poland's 6 gigawatt and the Netherlands' 3.6 gigawatt pipelines are the fastest-growing European additions and the cleanest test of whether the EU's reformed auction design is working.