Ten Most Read News on offshoreWIND.biz in 2025

OffshoreWIND.biz has millions of views per year and hundreds of thousands per month. In 2025, some stories received significantly bigger attention than others, and in this overview, we are bringing the ten most popular news in the now-past year.

In August, only days after Ørsted reported that Revolution Wind was at 80 per cent of completion, the US Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) issued a stop-work order halting all offshore construction activities on the offshore wind project that is scheduled to start feeding electricity into Connecticut and Rhode Island grids this year.

The decision, which sparked backlash from the industry and some state governments, came a few months after a stop-work order was issued for Equinor’s Empire Wind 1. The order for Empire Wind 1 was rescinded around a month after it was imposed, following talks between the New York state government and the White House.

Revolution Wind continued construction in September after a US judge in Washington granted a temporary injunction that lifted the federal stop-work order.

However, the 704 MW Revolution Wind and several other projects were ordered to cease offshore work (again) on 22 December 2025, when the US Department of Interior paused the leases and suspended construction at all large-scale offshore wind projects currently under construction in the United States, citing ”national security risks identified by the Department of War in recently completed classified reports.” This order is still in effect as of the publication of this article.

In May 2025, Ørsted said it had discontinued the development of the UK’s Hornsea 4 offshore wind farm in its current form. The developer said the 2.4 GW project has faced rising supply chain costs, higher interest rates, and increased construction and delivery risks since the Contract for Difference (CfD) award in Allocation Round 6 (AR6) in September 2024.

In combination, these developments have increased the execution risk and deteriorated the value creation of the project, which led to Ørsted stopping further spending on the project and terminating the project’s supply chain contracts, according to the Danish company. This means that the firm will not deliver Hornsea 4 under the CfD awarded in AR6.

Ørsted added that it will evaluate options for the future development of Hornsea 4, given the continuing seabed rights, grid connection agreement, and development consent order.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, Mingyang Smart Energy unveiled plans to develop a massive 50 MW floating offshore wind turbine featuring a twin-head design similar to the company’s Ocean-X platform.

The wind turbine would use two 25 MW main engines supported by a V-shaped tower, similar to the design of the company’s Ocean-X platform, a 16.6 MW floating unit launched in 2024.

The turbine is planned to be installed in deep waters, featuring twin 290-metre rotors.

A few months before Mingyang announced its new wind turbine, reports emerged that the Trump administration had warned the UK government about security risks related to Mingyang Smart Energy’s proposed factory in Scotland, where the Chinese OEM plans to manufacture wind turbines for North Sea offshore wind farms.

The UK Department for International Trade (DIT) and Mingyang Smart Energy signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in December 2021, which involves the company’s proposed investment in a blade manufacturing factory, a service centre and potentially a turbine assembly factory in the UK.

Since then, Mingyang’s wind turbines have already been selected, or considered, as the preferred technology for a few projects in Europe, including Italy, Germany, and Scotland.

On 18 June 2025, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration warned the UK government about national security risks that could arise if Mingyang is allowed to build its plant in Scotland and supply its technology to North Sea wind farms.

Following the news on the US warning, Chinese media outlet Global Times cited a senior fellow at the Center for China and Globalization, He Weiwen, as saying this was “protectionism under national security guise” and “a clear example of Washington’s overreaching jurisdiction and protectionist policies”.

In September 2025, the French government announced that a consortium between TotalEnergies and RWE had won the Centre Manche 2 tender to develop an offshore wind farm off the coast of Normandy. According to the developers, with the capacity of 1.5 GW, this is the largest renewable energy initiative in France to date.

After being declared the tender winner, the consortium stated that, as part of a strategic review of its investment, RWE expressed its wish to exit the consortium, subject to approval by the French authorities. TotalEnergies confirmed plans to pursue the floating wind project, assuming all the commitments of the consortium, and said it would propose bringing in a new partner.

TotalEnergies said its team in Normandy will keep working with local and regional stakeholders, continuing the dialogue started during the tender process, and revealed plans to make a final investment decision by early 2029.

The Port of Tyne, located in the northeast of England, unveiled plans for a massive investment in September 2025. The plan involves adding 400 metres of deep-water quayside to support offshore renewables, clean energy, and advanced manufacturing.

The port will invest GBP 150 million (approximately EUR 173 million) to transform 230 acres into the Tyne Clean Energy Park, a move that could create up to 12,000 jobs, deliver GBP 5.6 billion (about EUR 6.5 billion) to the economy, and establish the North East as a hub for the UK’s green energy revolution, according to an independent study by WSP.

The plan for Tyne Clean Energy Park includes a kilometre of both new and redeveloped deep-water, heavy-lift quay to facilitate the use of a 230-acre footprint located within an Industrial Strategy Zone.

In April 2025, the UK government granted development consent to Rampion 2, the proposed 1.2 GW extension to the 400 MW Rampion offshore wind farm in Sussex.

RWE signed a seabed lease agreement with The Crown Estate in 2021 and submitted the DCO application for Rampion 2 in August 2023. The Planning Inspectorate started the examination process on 7 September 2023.

The inspectorate closed the examination period in August 2024, following public consultation and review of RWE’s application, and sent the recommendation report to the Secretary of State in early November 2024.

Under the development consent order, the Rampion 2 offshore wind farm can have a maximum of 90 wind turbines with a rotor diameter of no more than 295 metres each.

The offshore wind farm will be located adjacent to the south and west of the existing Rampion offshore wind farm, between 13 and 25 kilometres off the Sussex coast, and will connect to the national grid at the Bolney Substation in Mid Sussex, with the cable to come to shore under Climping Beach in West Sussex.

Ørsted said it would lay off around 500 people by the end of 2025 and a total of approximately 2,000 towards the end of 2027. Of the 500 employees who will be made redundant in Q4 2025, some 235 are in Denmark.

The company said on 9 October 2025 that the move to reduce the number of employees comes as Ørsted will be focusing more on offshore wind and the market in Europe. Several offshore wind farms will be completed in the coming years, and the company also plans to improve its competitiveness, which further contribute to the decision.

The offshore wind developer currently employs around 8,000 people globally, which matches the current high level of activity, Ørsted said. However, by the end of 2027, the company expects to have around 6,000 employees and plans to reduce the workforce through natural attrition, a reduction of positions, divestment, outsourcing, and redundancies. 

“Towards the end of 2027, the organisation will be rightsized in parallel with the decline in construction activities”, Ørsted said in a press release.

The company pointed out that this was another step in the execution of its updated business plan and strategic priorities, with several initiatives to strengthen the company’s position in 2028 announced during this year, including the recently completed rights issue. As part of its updated strategy, Ørsted will also focus on offshore wind in Europe and in select markets in the Asia-Pacific region in the future.

In January 2025, the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) completed the review and approved the revised Construction and Operations Plan (COP) for the Vineyard Wind 1 offshore wind farm, and lifted the suspension on Vineyard Wind’s installation of the remaining GE Vernova wind turbines.

The new COP detailed the root cause analysis (RCA) conducted by the wind turbine manufacturer regarding the blade failure that occurred in July 2024.

The RCA found that there was insufficient bonding at certain locations within the blade, which should have been detected at the manufacturing plant through inspection and quality control procedures. After reprocessing of the manufacturing data from the installed blades, additional blades with insufficient bonding were identified.

BSEE directed Vineyard Wind to remove all blades manufactured at GE Vernova’s facility in Gaspé, Canada.

On 30 October 2025, the Dutch government confirmed that no applications were submitted in the offshore wind tender for the 1 GW Nederwiek I-A site in the North Sea.

The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) said that rising costs, challenging contract conditions and reduced electricity demand made offshore wind less attractive for developers. The agency pointed out that other European tenders, including in Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Belgium, faced similar difficulties or postponements.

In a letter to Parliament on 30 October, Dutch Minister for Climate and Green Growth, Sophie Hermans wrote: “Today the tender for the Nederwiek I-A wind site has closed. No applications have been submitted. This confirms that we have entered a market situation in which government support is crucial to prevent offshore wind development from stalling.”

Hermans said that the market had changed significantly in recent years. Whereas offshore wind farms could be built without subsidies since 2018 and some developers were even willing to pay for permits, “European market conditions have now changed considerably”, Hermans noted. 

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