According to a report by Wood Mackenzie, the global offshore wind O&M market is forecast to grow 16% annually to $12 billion by 2029, with China set to become the largest market by then.
According to the report, Europe remains the largest O&M market by region, reaching $6.6 billion by 2029, while rapidly expanding markets in Asia and the U.S. could bring new challenges and opportunities for the domestic industry as well as international investors.
“We expect to see O&M strategies developed for highly subsidized projects with near-shore and smaller turbines evolve to adapt to the new market landscape characterized by large turbines and declining subsidies. As the global O&M market grows, these changes will open up new opportunities for both existing and new players in the offshore wind sector,” said Shimeng Yang, spokesperson for Wood Mackenzie.
Wood Mackenzie believes that as manufacturers devote more resources to O&M services for newer and more efficient turbine models, the aging turbine fleet represents a significant opportunity for independent service providers as well as in-house expertise, and China is expected to overtake the UK’s position as the world’s largest single offshore wind O&M market, with 41 GW of growth over the 2020s, leading to a total of 49 GW of capacity, equivalent to 2. Billion in opex opportunities by 2029.
“China’s young and growing fleet will require radical changes in asset management strategy to cope with the huge demand in the 2020s,” Yang added.
