Johan Hodal Meincke, Director and Head of Europe, and Deko Aden, Senior BD Administrator
How can policy makers capitalise from this moment in the energy transition to ensure rapid acceleration and growth?
Recent geopolitical events have thrown into sharp relief the importance of secure energy in Europe. With global economies reeling from the closure of the Straits of Hormuz to the smooth flow of around 20% of the world’s oil and gas, European policy makers are looking once again at how to accelerate the rollout of renewable assets including offshore wind.
The signing in February 2026 of the Hamburg Declaration was a clear signal of intent from European nations to strengthen cooperation in the North Sea region with its commitment to produce 100 GW of offshore wind via cross-border projects.
However, turning Europe into ‘a green energy superpower’ will inevitably take time, and the model of convergence that Hamburg foresees is unlikely to deliver concrete results until well into 2027 and beyond.
Therefore, what can policy makers do to seize the growth agenda?
Convergence around Contracts for Difference
Firstly, we will likely see further convergence around the existing policy lever for offshore wind growth – the Contracts for Difference (CfD) mechanism).
Indeed, European states have experimented previously with different auction formats resulting in mixed outcomes. Recent tender failures, including the Nederwiek I-A offshore wind tender in the Netherlands, which delivered zero bids in 2025, underlined the limitations of a fragmented revenue support environment and intensified calls for standardisation.
These failures have concentrated thoughts around the CfD mechanism – a tried and tested model. Indeed, plans are underway to bring forward the next Allocation Round (AR) 8 in the UK by two months. In France, upcoming allocation rounds 9 and 10 will be merged to create a larger and more attractive pot for developers.
For developers and the supply chain, CfD convergence represents integration at the market design level – aligning risk frameworks, stabilising financing conditions, and reducing the cost of capital across the continent. Instead of competing subsidy regimes, Europe is assembling a unified architecture for predictable, long-term offshore wind deployment.
Increased Cross-border Collaboration
This year, European countries have started to put measures in place to increase cross-border collaboration on offshore wind.
Denmark and Germany reached an agreement in the margins of the Hamburg Declaration on cost-sharing for a development off Bornholm (Bornholm Energy Island). Backed by a EUR 645 million grant from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility, the Bornholm project is an important pillar of the Energy Highways initiative. Similar initiatives, such as GriffinLink and LionLink across the English Channel, demonstrate that this approach is shared by many European nations.
Furthermore, landlocked Luxembourg has pledged to invest at least EUR 44 million approx. to buy renewable power generated by Danish power plants, taking advantage of Denmark’s offshore wind potential. The arrangement calls for the country to purchase up to EUR 133 million worth of green power in the years between 2025 and 2030 showing how even landlocked states are now able to secure offshore wind through integrated EU frameworks.
For developers, these moves mean larger, more stable demand pools, predictable multi-country procurement, and reduced risk of bottlenecks caused by isolated national decisions. For the supply chain, it means longer-term signals for manufacturing investment, port expansion, and workforce planning.
Offshore Wind as a Driver of Energy Security
Thirdly, the goal of securing reliable clean energy for Europe has crystallised in the minds of politicians and policy makers as recent events indicate that crises are no longer a ‘once-a-decade’ phenomena but rather an ever-present feature of the early 21st century.
Security concerns have accelerated Europe’s move from competitive national energy strategies to collective resilience planning articulated most acutely in the Hamburg Declaration.
For example, the Hamburg Declaration was framed by the UK and EU as a clean energy security pact, explicitly linking offshore wind deployment to energy sovereignty in an unstable geopolitical environment.
The aforementioned Bornholm agreement incorporates around EUR 100 million for the Danish Armed Forces in mitigation measures to protect the strategically critical project.
Plans are underway to address the vulnerability of the Baltic States and the limits of competition. In fact, Lithuania’s second offshore tender failed partly due to its location bordering nearby Kaliningrad (Russia). Only an integrated European security and defence framework that incorporates strategic offshore assets will provide developers with the certainty that they need.
For developers, the integration of security thinking into energy policy offers confidence that future offshore assets, particularly in the Baltic, will be backed by a pan-European approach to protection and resilience.
Integration Unlocks Scale, Stability, and Supply Chain Confidence
Europe’s offshore wind industry is moving from competition to integration – an evolution that is central to unlocking the next wave of industrialised growth. The recent policy landscape – CfD convergence, cross‑border energy islands, continental grid planning, and security‑driven cooperation – signals a genuine shift toward a single European offshore wind market.
For developers and supply chain leaders, the message is clear:
- Integration reduces risk.
- Integration creates predictable multi-year demand.
- Integration improves bankability and lowers financing costs.
- Integration enables supply chain investment at scale.
- Integration strengthens Europe’s energy sovereignty.
What we are seeing is the next phase in the sector’s growth – one that will see countries like the UK produce up to 50% of their power from offshore wind underlining the importance of these initiatives.
Europe has entered the era of coordinated acceleration, and the supply chain now has the clearest signal yet to expand capacity, invest confidently, and prepare for sustained offshore wind growth across the continent.
The task now is to ensure these initiatives translate swiftly into concrete action and deliverable projects.
This article was drafted by Wood Thilsted’s Johan Hodal Meincke, Director and Head of Europe, and Senior BD Administrator, Deko Aden. The views expressed in this article are their own.