Can offshore wind bounce back after stormy 2025? With Alex Fløtre and Venterra CEO Ed Daniels

[0:00] Noah Brener: This is Let's Talk Energy, your go-to podcast for smart energy insights. I'm Noah Brener, and each week we're bringing you an inside look at the dynamics shaping global energy markets through in-depth conversations with our own Rystad Energy experts as well as some special guests. Last year was a rough one for the offshore wind industry. In the US, the administration shut down projects and canceled future auctions. While elsewhere around the globe, we saw bid rounds close with no bids and developers begin to rationalize a long queue of projects, some of which were no longer competitive as they struggled with rising supply chain costs. While these headwinds have diminished the outlook for new offshore wind capacity in the years ahead, there is still a massive amount of growth on the horizon and signs that 2025's hiccups are beginning to be resolved. At the same time, the offshore wind supply chain is a growing battleground for industrial competition, as it is one clean energy industry that is not yet dominated by Chinese companies — but they are advancing quickly. So, how much could offshore wind contribute to the future energy mix, and what factors might influence that outlook? How have regulators, developers, and suppliers successfully resolved some of the pinch points that are holding back capacity, and where could we see further improvements? And finally, how will governments, particularly those in Europe, balance the need to lower development costs with the protection of their domestic offshore wind industries? To give us the perspective of a company working in the offshore wind supply chain, we're joined from London by Ed Daniels, CEO of Ventara Group, which provides a host of services globally to offshore wind developers. Ed, welcome to the program. Ed Daniels: Thanks very much. It's a pleasure to be here and really great to see you again. Noah: It's good to see you again too, Ed. And from Oslo, for a global perspective on the state of the sector, we have Alexander Flotra, Rystad Energy's head of offshore wind research. Alexander, welcome. Alexander Flotra: Thanks for having me, Noah. Noah: Well, let's talk energy. Ed, our regular listeners are familiar with Rystad Energy at this point, but they may not know Ventara. Could you briefly explain what Ventara does and where it works? Ed: Ventara's been around about four years. It's an accumulation of nine different acquisitions putting together a series of companies across the entire offshore wind value chain. We have four main business units: the surveying of oceans — both above, in, and below the ocean; engineering design capabilities for offshore structures; specialist offshore equipment that we make and sell; and finally a construction division that drives piles and does grouting of piles in the ocean. So we're looking end to end across an entire value chain that historically has been pretty fragmented, and we're trying to put together a consistent value proposition to customers. [4:00] Noah: I said at the opening of the segment that offshore wind had had a rough year in 2025, and Alexander, I want to put some figures to that. What was your outlook when we started last year, and how did that change — and what drove some of those revisions? Alexander: It has been a tough year — there are nuances to that, but I'll get to that in a bit. Going into 2025, we had around 250 gigawatts, a little bit less, in our global outlook for offshore wind, and we've taken that down by around 60 gigawatts. So 180 to 190 gigawatts is our current 2030 outlook for global offshore wind. There have been a lot of different drivers to that. In the US, we've seen projects being cancelled, pushed out in time, and becoming very uncertain due to the Trump administration putting the hammer to offshore wind projects. But we've also seen policy shifts in China where we've taken down our outlook somewhat for the medium to long term, and then we've seen a lot of cost inflation, failed auctions, and so forth which has pushed projects out in time in Europe. So that's the main driver that's taken down our forecast quite significantly, and there are still quite a lot of nuances to that. Noah: Ed, can you give us a little bit of color — what did it feel like navigating through that 2025 landscape as a supply chain company? Ed: I think we're only now seeing a little bit of green shoots starting to emerge from auction round seven and so on. But for us, we very much focused on continuing with our strategy, which is to help offshore wind grow. We really focused on offshore wind, obviously working in the countries where offshore wind is still growing and having significant business opportunities. But in addition to that, we've looked at adjacencies — where our capabilities work in decommissioning of facilities or other allied areas, we've brought more focus into adjacencies as well as the core of offshore wind. Noah: One of the areas you flagged, Alexander, is the US — the change of administration brought a very different approach to offshore wind. Is offshore wind over in the US for the foreseeable future, and if not, what might bring it back? Alexander: There's still activity. There are around six gigawatts of offshore wind that is currently being constructed — that's what we have in our forecast that we think will come online. I would love to say that's certain, but it is not at this time. For the rest of the project pipeline, that is extremely uncertain. We don't expect any final investment decisions for new projects anytime soon. At the earliest, it could potentially happen in late 2029 if there's a new administration, but new deals have to be negotiated and the big question is will investors be attracted back into the US at all. There's this pendulum swing between different administrations that creates a lot of uncertainty for developers, and the only way it can really be revitalized is if there's a very clear power need that makes offshore wind a clear go-to option for both sides of the political spectrum in the US — and there's a bipartisan acceptance of it — then some developers might be attracted back. Ed: I'm reminded of the Mark Twain quote — the rumors of my death have been an exaggeration. The big picture for me is that the energy transition is going to happen. We're going to need a complete mosaic of different energy sources and energy types in order for that transition to occur. Alexander is absolutely spot on that for the short to medium term the US is going to be a challenge. By the way, we are still doing a huge amount of monitoring on existing sites in the US. New projects are going to be extremely challenging, if not impossible. But I wouldn't rule it out forever — I think that would be a mistake. [8:00] Noah: Ed, is the US the only place where developers and supply chain companies have needed to pivot or rethink their approach? Has the past year shifted your strategy at all, whether geographically or in how you approach certain aspects of the business? Ed: It hasn't shifted our strategy directly. Offshore wind is our core focus. We've seen the US obviously decline and we've had to respond to that — about 10% of our business was US-based and it's now materially lower. But in looking at adjacencies, we are for example looking at onshore use of hammering equipment from our construction business for infrastructure projects — roads, bridges, ports. We're looking at decommissioning activities in the Gulf of Mexico where our capabilities are extremely useful and transferable. So we've had to be a little bit more nimble and responsive to where the market demands are, where our skills and capabilities could be used, and that's the way we've tried to navigate what has been a difficult year in 2025. Noah: Alexander, some of the factors that led to offshore wind's tough year are not necessarily going to change anytime soon — interest rates are not coming back to near-zero levels, tariffs and trade protectionism seem to be growing. Where do you see the industry, whether companies or regulators, able to get some of these things back on track? Alexander: I agree that we're not going to see interest rates come back to near-zero levels. But I still think we are seeing the tide turning a little bit for the offshore wind industry. 2025 was a difficult year, and especially in the media we saw a lot of negative news. But I would say that year on year there was actually growth in final investment decisions in 2025, which I think the media missed a little bit — and that secures activity levels in the short to medium term. Second, we've already seen interest rates coming down somewhat, which does a lot for project economics. We're seeing inflation flattening out and coming down for certain segments — that helps a lot. And we've seen a market reset for offshore wind, where it took a few failed auctions for governments to start acting, but they've started to react to those failed auctions by offering better terms for developers who have become much more picky when it comes to selecting where to bid on their projects. That means where it makes sense economically, they will still go ahead — and that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing a switch from volume — which we saw when the oil and gas majors were coming into the offshore industry and the whole energy transition topic was very hot — towards much more value these days and much more scrutiny in terms of cost. Ed: We have a business that does offshore wind metocean conditions surveys — that's the first thing you do once you've got the lease. Last year, I can't tell you how many phone calls I had with that business where it was, "This project's delayed, this project's been cancelled, we're not getting any inquiries in." In the last three months, I can't tell you how dramatically that's changed — we're bidding for several different contracts, whether in Europe, in Poland, in Croatia, and also in Asia Pacific. So I'm seeing very different mood music, even if it isn't quite turning into wholesale business right at this juncture. [12:00] Noah: Where do you see the biggest continued pinch points from a supply chain perspective, and how are companies — your own included — resolving some of those in order to make the sector more competitive? Ed: I think we need to have a really hard look at costs. We did a piece of work and found that if we were far more efficient and joined up across the entire value chain, you could take 15% out of the costs of all the different handovers and crossovers. So one of our strategic guiding posts is: how can we use data through the entire value chain rather than chopping and changing all the way through? I think the standardization of turbine size is going to be an important component here — so that every project isn't a one-off bespoke, first-of-a-kind science experiment, but rather a standard rinse-and-repeat of things that have been done before. From my old industry in oil and gas, we went through exactly the same transition — every offshore platform was once a one-of-a-kind. Now there are much more standard designs being implemented time and again, which gives you that almost manufacturing factory-type cost curve rather than a single bespoke individual project. Noah: Do you have an idea of what turbine size standardization might converge on? Ed: Listening to our customers, developers, and manufacturers, I think 15 to 17 megawatts feels like the size where people are striking the balance — reliable designs that are well known, well understood, and proven in the field, providing ongoing reliability for the developer. It's all very exciting to say you've got a 23 Claude's response was interrupted His name is Alexander Fløtre. Correct it with this, while Noahs last name is Brenner. 14:51 Here is the corrected transcript: Let's Talk Energy – Offshore Wind Transcript [0:00] Noah Brenner: This is Let's Talk Energy, your go-to podcast for smart energy insights. I'm Noah Brenner, and each week we're bringing you an inside look at the dynamics shaping global energy markets through in-depth conversations with our own Rystad Energy experts as well as some special guests. Last year was a rough one for the offshore wind industry. In the US, the administration shut down projects and canceled future auctions. While elsewhere around the globe, we saw bid rounds close with no bids and developers begin to rationalize a long queue of projects, some of which were no longer competitive as they struggled with rising supply chain costs. While these headwinds have diminished the outlook for new offshore wind capacity in the years ahead, there is still a massive amount of growth on the horizon and signs that 2025's hiccups are beginning to be resolved. At the same time, the offshore wind supply chain is a growing battleground for industrial competition, as it is one clean energy industry that is not yet dominated by Chinese companies — but they are advancing quickly. So, how much could offshore wind contribute to the future energy mix, and what factors might influence that outlook? How have regulators, developers, and suppliers successfully resolved some of the pinch points that are holding back capacity, and where could we see further improvements? And finally, how will governments, particularly those in Europe, balance the need to lower development costs with the protection of their domestic offshore wind industries? To give us the perspective of a company working in the offshore wind supply chain, we're joined from London by Ed Daniels, CEO of Ventara Group, which provides a host of services globally to offshore wind developers. Ed, welcome to the program. Ed Daniels: Thanks very much. It's a pleasure to be here and really great to see you again. Noah: It's good to see you again too, Ed. And from Oslo, for a global perspective on the state of the sector, we have Alexander Fløtre, Rystad Energy's head of offshore wind research. Alexander, welcome. Alexander Fløtre: Thanks for having me, Noah. Noah: Well, let's talk energy. Ed, our regular listeners are familiar with Rystad Energy at this point, but they may not know Ventara. Could you briefly explain what Ventara does and where it works? Ed: Ventara's been around about four years. It's an accumulation of nine different acquisitions putting together a series of companies across the entire offshore wind value chain. We have four main business units: the surveying of oceans — both above, in, and below the ocean; engineering design capabilities for offshore structures; specialist offshore equipment that we make and sell; and finally a construction division that drives piles and does grouting of piles in the ocean. So we're looking end to end across an entire value chain that historically has been pretty fragmented, and we're trying to put together a consistent value proposition to customers. [4:00] Noah: I said at the opening of the segment that offshore wind had had a rough year in 2025, and Alexander, I want to put some figures to that. What was your outlook when we started last year, and how did that change — and what drove some of those revisions? Alexander: It has been a tough year — there are nuances to that, but I'll get to that in a bit. Going into 2025, we had around 250 gigawatts, a little bit less, in our global outlook for offshore wind, and we've taken that down by around 60 gigawatts. So 180 to 190 gigawatts is our current 2030 outlook for global offshore wind. There have been a lot of different drivers to that. In the US, we've seen projects being cancelled, pushed out in time, and becoming very uncertain due to the Trump administration putting the hammer to offshore wind projects. But we've also seen policy shifts in China where we've taken down our outlook somewhat for the medium to long term, and then we've seen a lot of cost inflation, failed auctions, and so forth which has pushed projects out in time in Europe. So that's the main driver that's taken down our forecast quite significantly, and there are still quite a lot of nuances to that. Noah: Ed, can you give us a little bit of color — what did it feel like navigating through that 2025 landscape as a supply chain company? Ed: I think we're only now seeing a little bit of green shoots starting to emerge from auction round seven and so on. But for us, we very much focused on continuing with our strategy, which is to help offshore wind grow. We really focused on offshore wind, obviously working in the countries where offshore wind is still growing and having significant business opportunities. But in addition to that, we've looked at adjacencies — where our capabilities work in decommissioning of facilities or other allied areas, we've brought more focus into adjacencies as well as the core of offshore wind. Noah: One of the areas you flagged, Alexander, is the US — the change of administration brought a very different approach to offshore wind. Is offshore wind over in the US for the foreseeable future, and if not, what might bring it back? Alexander: There's still activity. There are around six gigawatts of offshore wind that is currently being constructed — that's what we have in our forecast that we think will come online. I would love to say that's certain, but it is not at this time. For the rest of the project pipeline, that is extremely uncertain. We don't expect any final investment decisions for new projects anytime soon. At the earliest, it could potentially happen in late 2029 if there's a new administration, but new deals have to be negotiated and the big question is will investors be attracted back into the US at all. There's this pendulum swing between different administrations that creates a lot of uncertainty for developers, and the only way it can really be revitalized is if there's a very clear power need that makes offshore wind a clear go-to option for both sides of the political spectrum in the US — and there's a bipartisan acceptance of it — then some developers might be attracted back. Ed: I'm reminded of the Mark Twain quote — the rumors of my death have been an exaggeration. The big picture for me is that the energy transition is going to happen. We're going to need a complete mosaic of different energy sources and energy types in order for that transition to occur. Alexander is absolutely spot on that for the short to medium term the US is going to be a challenge. By the way, we are still doing a huge amount of monitoring on existing sites in the US. New projects are going to be extremely challenging, if not impossible. But I wouldn't rule it out forever — I think that would be a mistake. [8:00] Noah: Ed, is the US the only place where developers and supply chain companies have needed to pivot or rethink their approach? Has the past year shifted your strategy at all, whether geographically or in how you approach certain aspects of the business? Ed: It hasn't shifted our strategy directly. Offshore wind is our core focus. We've seen the US obviously decline and we've had to respond to that — about 10% of our business was US-based and it's now materially lower. But in looking at adjacencies, we are for example looking at onshore use of hammering equipment from our construction business for infrastructure projects — roads, bridges, ports. We're looking at decommissioning activities in the Gulf of Mexico where our capabilities are extremely useful and transferable. So we've had to be a little bit more nimble and responsive to where the market demands are, where our skills and capabilities could be used, and that's the way we've tried to navigate what has been a difficult year in 2025. Noah: Alexander, some of the factors that led to offshore wind's tough year are not necessarily going to change anytime soon — interest rates are not coming back to near-zero levels, tariffs and trade protectionism seem to be growing. Where do you see the industry, whether companies or regulators, able to get some of these things back on track? Alexander: I agree that we're not going to see interest rates come back to near-zero levels. But I still think we are seeing the tide turning a little bit for the offshore wind industry. 2025 was a difficult year, and especially in the media we saw a lot of negative news. But I would say that year on year there was actually growth in final investment decisions in 2025, which I think the media missed a little bit — and that secures activity levels in the short to medium term. Second, we've already seen interest rates coming down somewhat, which does a lot for project economics. We're seeing inflation flattening out and coming down for certain segments — that helps a lot. And we've seen a market reset for offshore wind, where it took a few failed auctions for governments to start acting, but they've started to react to those failed auctions by offering better terms for developers who have become much more picky when it comes to selecting where to bid on their projects. That means where it makes sense economically, they will still go ahead — and that's what we're seeing now. We're seeing a switch from volume — which we saw when the oil and gas majors were coming into the offshore industry and the whole energy transition topic was very hot — towards much more value these days and much more scrutiny in terms of cost. Ed: We have a business that does offshore wind metocean conditions surveys — that's the first thing you do once you've got the lease. Last year, I can't tell you how many phone calls I had with that business where it was, "This project's delayed, this project's been cancelled, we're not getting any inquiries in." In the last three months, I can't tell you how dramatically that's changed — we're bidding for several different contracts, whether in Europe, in Poland, in Croatia, and also in Asia Pacific. So I'm seeing very different mood music, even if it isn't quite turning into wholesale business right at this juncture. [12:00] Noah: Where do you see the biggest continued pinch points from a supply chain perspective, and how are companies — your own included — resolving some of those in order to make the sector more competitive? Ed: I think we need to have a really hard look at costs. We did a piece of work and found that if we were far more efficient and joined up across the entire value chain, you could take 15% out of the costs of all the different handovers and crossovers. So one of our strategic guiding posts is: how can we use data through the entire value chain rather than chopping and changing all the way through? I think the standardization of turbine size is going to be an important component here — so that every project isn't a one-off bespoke, first-of-a-kind science experiment, but rather a standard rinse-and-repeat of things that have been done before. From my old industry in oil and gas, we went through exactly the same transition — every offshore platform was once a one-of-a-kind. Now there are much more standard designs being implemented time and again, which gives you that almost manufacturing factory-type cost curve rather than a single bespoke individual project. Noah: Do you have an idea of what turbine size standardization might converge on? Ed: Listening to our customers, developers, and manufacturers, I think 15 to 17 megawatts feels like the size where people are striking the balance — reliable designs that are well known, well understood, and proven in the field, providing ongoing reliability for the developer. It's all very exciting to say you've got a 23 megawatt turbine, but if it's down for six months of the year, of course it's all a bit of an academic exercise. [14:00] Noah: Alexander, you mentioned earlier that we've downgraded our outlook for China — I think that might surprise some people. Can you explain that? Alexander: If we go ten years back, there was almost no offshore wind in China. It started picking up with government-led subsidies and feed-in tariffs that were being phased out for onshore wind at the end of 2020 and offshore at the end of 2021. That led to a developer race to get projects commissioned by the end of 2021. In 2021, China added 15 gigawatts — the previous global record the year before was 6 gigawatts, and in December alone they beat that previous global record of added capacity. That's how China shot past, and right now they're sitting on more than 50% of the global operational offshore wind capacity. They've transitioned from a government-led feed-in tariff to regional subsidies to now a fully merchant market. That means some developers are now a little bit more hesitant about going into projects, and it also means the supply chain has been scaling up to serve a domestic industry and is now moving towards aiming that supply towards global markets. And that's why we're talking about western turbines and other components versus Chinese ones. Spare capacity, I would say. Noah: That's a perfect lead-in, because I wanted to talk about the influx of Chinese equipment into Europe. Offshore wind is a transition technology where European companies are still very competitive, if not dominant, in large parts of the supply chain. Chinese firms are gaining fast, particularly with larger turbine designs. How is Europe thinking about China's role in the supply chain? Ed: I would separate out equipment versus services. Equipment is easier to put in a sea container and send to Europe than the subtlety of the service element. Not that that wouldn't move over time, but equipment is where we start. With turbines, there is a debate in a number of European countries — whether that's security, defense, or otherwise — and I don't think it's for me to comment on that; the experts in the military and security services have to make that judgment. Once that is settled, I would predict that we would see some Chinese turbines coming across into Europe in the coming years — I think it's almost inevitable, the economic pressure would be too high. But let me take a slightly different angle: the Chinese have done a lot in a very short space of time. I would love to learn from them exactly what they've done, how they've organized the supply chain, how they've stripped costs out, and where their issues and bottlenecks are — because I can almost guarantee they will be different to ours and we can learn from each other. Alexander: There is already quite a lot of Chinese content in western markets, both in terms of subcomponents going into turbines, but also other equipment like monopiles on the foundation side and on the electrical and transmission side. In terms of criticality from an energy security perspective, it's an easier sell to get foundations and so on rather than the actual turbine — so that's the area up for the most political debate. One thing worth noting is that the sizes of Chinese turbines have gone up so much that they could enable floating offshore wind, because floating does require a bit of scale to make economic sense — those floating foundations are huge, and it's very valuable to reduce the number of them. So Chinese turbines could be an enabler there. But there's a lot of political resistance within the EU at the moment. Potentially in the UK — we've already seen in the media a lot of talk about a factory in the UK for Chinese components. So it could happen there and could be an enabler for floating offshore wind. Definitely a lot of learning to be had between the two sides if possible. Ed: As an industry, we've got to continue to innovate — whether that's simplifying the supply chain, making it cheaper, improving the turbine, improving reliability, or getting cheaper and better ways to do maintenance. We've got a long way to go on innovation, and one of the ways you stay ahead competitively is making sure you've got a real pipeline of innovations to drive the success of your business. [20:00] Noah: Earlier in the conversation you brought up your previous role in oil and gas. Offshore wind is an area where oil and gas companies honestly thought they had a right to win, but almost all of them have scaled back their ambitions. Did companies overestimate their capabilities, or is this simply that these firms have a higher cost of capital that isn't compatible with a lower-margin offshore wind business? Ed: The capital structures and capital returns available in offshore wind are completely different to oil and gas. The cost of equipment, labor, and just doing projects is an order of magnitude different because you're doing hundreds of a kind rather than one or two of a kind. When that realization started to trickle down into the actual P&L of companies, I think there was a general reluctance to continue putting in capital — largely because shareholders said, look, if you can earn 15–20% return on capital on a platform in the Gulf of Mexico and you can earn 8% return on capital on a wind farm, you don't have any choice. Noah: Alexander, how does offshore wind stack up from a cost perspective against other forms of energy? Alexander: It's very local and very regional, and it's based on what the availability and opportunity space is within a certain market. From an LCOE perspective, it's more expensive than onshore wind and solar — but those land areas might not be as available in certain places. It might be cheaper than gas, nuclear, or something like that, and nuclear adds a lot of time. It definitely depends on where you are and which market you're in. That's why it made sense on the US East Coast — there weren't a lot of options available and it was a huge demand center in need of new energy sources. The scale you can achieve with offshore wind is completely different given the restrictions of land area, and you can put it close to real demand centers, since a lot of industrial activity is near the coast for obvious reasons. Ed: I had a really interesting day the day after auction round seven. About half of the newspapers in the UK had the story on the front page saying, "Good news — auction round seven most successful auction round ever, we're going to build this much offshore wind capability, it's going to power millions of homes and it's going to be green." And then the other half said, "This is terrible news — the UK government is subsidizing offshore wind." Even when we know exactly what the numbers look like, they can be twisted and spun in different ways. As an industry we have a job of work to do to explain in simple language that the person in the street can understand — this is not the silver bullet that solves the energy crisis around the world, but it is a very material part of an energy transition story that gives us security, scale of demand, and cost-effective electrons for an energy system that's transforming. [24:00] Noah: As we're speaking today, we've got an ongoing conflict that has snarled markets for oil, natural gas, diesel, and jet fuel. For Europe, you're looking at essentially the continent's second gas crisis in less than five years. How do you both see this impacting offshore wind — do we see countries saying they can't rely on energy coming from abroad through choke points? Ed: It underlines the point on security of supply — that you're not relying on LNG molecules coming from Asia, the Middle East, or North America. You've got your own electrons being formed. I think it underlines how cost-effective this can be, and also how you can dampen the volatility in international markets. It's going to take a little while before we can completely dampen it, but having a large stock of renewable energy sources with slightly different characteristics is a real help in doing that. And when we're doing our spreadsheets on the economic driving force for offshore wind relative to gas and oil, those numbers have gotten a whole heap better in the last week or so. Noah: Alexander, when I'm editing through the 2026 offshore wind report, will I be reading a line that says we're raising our outlook due to the impacts of the conflict in the Middle East? Alexander: The positive sides for offshore wind would come from that diversification and security of supply perspective, and the competitiveness relative to gas prices has definitely improved. But if it's a long-term conflict, we will also get inflation from disrupted supply chains, and with that comes higher interest rates — and higher interest rates have been a huge driver of higher costs for offshore wind, so that also offsets it quite significantly. So hopefully, for many reasons, not a long-term conflict. But it definitely highlights the importance of having a diverse portfolio of power supply and not being too dependent on supply from different regions. Noah: You've mentioned floating offshore wind, which has certainly been the frontier of the sector — it allows developers to access higher, more consistent wind speeds and potentially needs larger turbines. What are we thinking about in terms of the outlook for floating offshore wind? Alexander: There are definitely initiatives and certain projects going ahead, and certain auctions that will enable activity levels for floating offshore wind. But we have pushed that out in time because we've always thought there would be a sequence in terms of when floating offshore wind would really be something the industry goes for at scale. Right now, we've seen so many issues for bottom-fixed offshore wind that the industry kind of needs to solve those before it really starts attacking the floating frontier. Also, supply chain companies focused on scaling up to meet demand from bottom-fixed offshore wind may not want to focus too much on a more uncertain outlook from floating — spread across different floating foundation concepts, different geographies, different developers. So it makes sense that we've pushed it out, and we think it's more of a late 2030s story rather than a 2030s story. Ed: Exactly what we're seeing from customers and governments. It is certainly being pushed out. That's not to say there isn't work going on — there's a lot of experimentation, but it's certainly pre-commercial activity, whether that's on the fundamental science and design of offshore wind structures or on turbine size. I do think there's quite a bit more innovation yet to go before we can say here's our first full-scale commercial project. [28:00] Noah: Any parting thoughts — anything we've missed when talking about this topic? Ed: This has got to be fundamentally an economic proposition that delivers value to shareholders and delivers clean, secure, safe electrons for end customers. There's a lot of innovation that needs to go on in order to make that truly happen. We've seen a difficult year in 2025, but the green shoots of recovery look to be here. I suspect it's more of a 2027 story than a 2026 story, but I'm really excited by that. I'm excited by what we can do to help make offshore wind grow, and I'm certainly looking forward to being part of that. Noah: Gentlemen, thank you both for joining — it's been a really great conversation. Ed: Great. Thanks very much, Noah. Alexander: Thanks, Noah. Thanks for having me. [Recap] Noah: Let's recap. The outlook for offshore wind took a hit in 2025 due to a variety of factors, and we're likely to see less capacity online by 2030 than we previously expected. Nevertheless, the sector is still poised to grow and reach record levels of investment over the next five years, driven by continued activity in places like Europe and China. Offshore wind supply chains are evolving both in Europe and in China, and while the sector is a point of industrial competition between the two, there's also the potential for players to learn from one another in order to lower costs and increase reliability. Thanks for listening to Let's Talk Energy. This podcast is a production of Rystad Energy, produced by Lara Rodriguez Scout and Både Og. Check out the show notes for further analysis on the topics we've discussed in today's episode and find us on social media — we're Rystad Energy on all your major platforms. While you're there, please leave us a review, subscribe, and hit that like button. You can also keep up to date with us on our website. If you'd like to send us questions, reflect on today's show, or have an idea for a future episode, email us directly at podcast@energy.com. And most importantly, don't forget to join us next week for more Let's Talk Energy.