Written by: Bruno G. Geschier, Chairman of WFO’s Floating Offshore Wind Committee & former Chief Sales & Marketing Officer at BW Ideol.
For more than a decade, floating offshore wind has been portrayed as the industry’s next great leap forward. The promise was intoxicating: vast deep-water resources finally accessible, gigawatt-scale projects reshaping coastal economies, industrial clusters rising around ports and a decisive contribution to global decarbonization. The narrative was bold, visionary and necessary. Yet as the industry matures, a more complex story is emerging, one that exposes a growing gap between early ambition and the realities of project execution.
This gap is not a sign of failure. It is the hallmark of an industry coming of age.
The Era of Vision
In its formative years, floating wind was driven almost entirely by technology. Engineers and innovators focused on hydrodynamics, structural integrity, mooring systems and motion response. Semi-submersibles, spars, tension-leg platforms and barges competed in a highly technical arena. Debates centered on steel versus concrete, tow-out concepts, offshore hook-up strategies and fatigue performance.
This technical obsession was justified. Before anything else, floating wind had to prove it could survive at sea. Early pioneers demonstrated remarkable courage by deploying first-of-a-kind units in harsh environments, validating numerical models and accumulating precious operational data. These achievements laid the foundation for the entire sector.
But something subtle happened along the way. Technical success began to create an illusion, that once the “right” design emerged, commercial success would follow naturally. Reality would prove otherwise.
The Reality Check
Commercial floating wind projects are not technology demonstrations. They are complex systems of systems. A floating foundation is only one piece of a much larger puzzle that includes turbine readiness, certification regimes, port infrastructure, vessel availability, grid connections, regulatory stability, insurance capacity, financing structures and community acceptance.
Too many early projects underestimated this complexity. Bids were built around elegant engineering concepts while neglecting execution pathways, contingency planning and bankability narratives. Financial models were often optimistic, sometimes disconnected from fabrication realities, vessel day rates or insurance premiums.
The industry learned – sometimes painfully – that projects are won not just on innovation but on credibility.
Developers, lenders and insurers now expect far more than technical excellence. They demand robust execution strategies, alternative scenarios, real-time cost databases and evidence of lifecycle discipline. Floating wind has entered a world where confidence must be earned, not declared.
Experience Becomes Currency
A major inflection point has been the growing importance of return on experience. A small number of technologies now benefit from full-scale operational track records. Most do not. This asymmetry is reshaping the market.
From a financing perspective, limited experience translates into higher risk premiums, longer due diligence processes and conservative assumptions that inflate LCOE. Institutional investors remain cautious, preferring proven assets with predictable performance.
From an insurance standpoint, the impact is even sharper. Premiums rise, exclusions multiply and coverage capacity tightens. Some projects struggle to secure comprehensive protection at all. Uncertainty carries a very real price tag.
In this environment, theoretical superiority matters less than empirical evidence. This is not resistance to innovation, it is the economics of risk.
Policy Meets Reality
Governments have also been on a learning curve. Early tenders often mirrored fixed-bottom offshore wind frameworks: aggressive price competition, rigid local content mandates and compressed timelines. These approaches are now being rethought.
Authorities have discovered that excessive localization can violate trade law, immature supply chains inflate costs, binary eligibility criteria reduce competition and short-term auctions undermine industrialization. Leading jurisdictions are shifting toward multi-criteria tenders that balance price with industrial footprint, port investments, workforce development and risk mitigation strategies.
This evolution reflects a deeper understanding: floating wind is not just about cheap electrons, it is about building durable ecosystems.
Industrialization: The Real Battleground
Perhaps the most profound shift is happening in manufacturing. Early floating projects were bespoke. Every unit was different. Learning curves remained theoretical.
Now, industrialization is becoming the central competitive frontier. Modular designs, standardized interfaces, serial fabrication and dedicated ports are emerging. The industry is slowly moving from craftsmanship to manufacturing.
This favors players with mature designs, repeatable execution strategies and integrated logistics planning. Concrete substructures are gaining renewed interest in some regions as governments seek domestic industrial independence. Steel remains dominant – but for how long ? – yet geopolitical realities are reshaping sourcing strategies.
Floating wind is becoming an industrial product, not a custom prototype.
The Human Dimension
One of the most underappreciated lessons has nothing to do with engineering. Projects fail less often due to physics and more often due to governance: poor interface management, contractual misalignment, inexperienced leadership and dysfunctional cultures.
Successful projects increasingly share common traits: empathetic leadership, transparent partnerships, psychological safety and early stakeholder engagement. In decade-long projects, culture becomes infrastructure.
Kindness, humility and openness are no longer seen as soft virtues. They are risk mitigation tools. They accelerate problem-solving, improve communication and build resilience. In an industry defined by uncertainty, human dynamics matter.
Why Consolidation Is Accelerating
The sector is now entering a phase of consolidation. This is neither surprising nor negative, it is a sign of maturity.
Rising interest rates and inflation have exposed weak business cases. Developers are exiting marginal pipelines. Proven technologies attract capital while invalidated concepts struggle. Supply chains are constrained. Insurance capacity is limited. Governments are becoming more selective.
The result is a natural Darwinism. Weaker players exit or merge. Stronger developers acquire distressed assets. This rationalization protects the industry from reputational damage caused by failed megaprojects.
Consolidation is not the end of innovation. It is its refinement.
From Floating 1.0 to Floating 3.0
The industry has evolved through clear phases. Floating 1.0 was about technical proof. Floating 2.0 introduced early commercialization. Today we have entered Floating 3.0, an era defined by integrated project thinking.
Success now depends on balancing engineering excellence with commercial reality, on sophisticated tender strategies, on stakeholder storytelling and on designing for bankability and insurability from day one.
Gone are the days of selecting a foundation purely on hydrodynamic elegance. The real question has become: how does this technology help win tenders, secure financing and deliver on time?
The New Competitive Edge
Tomorrow’s winners will be those who combine engineering mastery with project development fluency. Those who understand lenders as well as mooring systems, regulatory frameworks as well as fabrication yards. Those who design with insurers in mind and build resilient supply chains.
This hybrid profile is extremely rare. But it is becoming decisive.
Conclusion: An Industry Growing Up
The gap between floating wind’s early vision and today’s execution realities has never been clearer. But this is not a crisis, it is a rite of passage.
The exuberance of youth is giving way to discipline. Data is replacing assumptions. Relationships are replacing slogans. Floating wind is shedding its adolescence.
Consolidation is not contraction. It is maturation.
Those who remain will be stronger, wiser and better equipped to scale floating wind into the hundreds of gigawatts the world ultimately needs.
From vision to units in the water, the journey has only just begun.
About the author:
Bruno G. Geschier is the Chairman of WORLD FORUM OFFSHORE WIND (WFO)‘s Floating Offshore Wind Committee and until recently served as Chief Sales & Marketing Officer of BW Ideol for 10 years. Beyond providing senior advisory and consultancy services and exploring future long-term career opportunities within the renewables and offshore wind industry, Bruno spends most of his time advocating floating offshore wind to policy makers, financial institutions, asset developers and utilities across the globe. He is a regular speaker and chairperson at offshore wind events in the US, Asia and Europe and co-organizes the world’s largest annual event solely dedicated to floating offshore wind (FOWT) for which he also serves as founding Chairman of its Scientific and Technical Committee. Bruno initiated WindEurope’s Floating Offshore Wind Work Group which he chaired for 3 years and sits on the advisory board of several international floating wind industry initiatives.